A Winter's Promise
by birdywings
Summary: "Will you be my guardian Jack?" She asked, peering up at me with those wide, round blue eyes of hers. People always said blue eyes resembled the ocean, but hers were bluer than the ocean. If anything they resembled the sky; because, just like the sky, there was no limit to them - they were endless. ENTIRE STORY UNDERGOING REVISIONS. CHAPTERS 1-13 COMPLETE. (SEE 32 FOR DETAILS)
1. Prologue: Told By The Stars

Prologue

Told By The Stars

Life. The world is full of it; in the young and the restless, in the old and the wise. The different varieties it comes in are endless. From the sizes it grows up to, to the shapes it morphs into. But every life begins the same; with the eyes that just barely open and swollen hands of an infant reaching out to the sky as it learns to experiment with its new body and all its many functions under all this flushed flesh. How eager the young mortal is to put its mobility to the test. How quickly can I move? How much will I grow? I'm sure they ask themselves.

Every life begins the same, but no life from my experience has ever ended similarly. And although each life should end in the age of the old and safely in the haven of their surrounded loved ones with eyes that have observed both the good and the bad and everything in between, and hands that have felt the warmest of embraces, and ears that have heard the merriest of melodies, and taste buds that have sampled the exotic flavours of life, and a voice that has been heard where it's song is silenced, many are tragically and inhumanly cut short. Shorter than they should have been.

And this is perhaps the cruelest of life's afflictions. And though the humans are still a young race with much to learn and very little time to be taught, they do, in fact, have more knowledge of the universe than I give them credit for. For it is from these mortals that I learned a lesson or two.

The first is that with every life begins a story. Every breath is a word. Every blink is a sentence, every step is a chapter, every beginning is an ending.

The second is that some stories are greater than others. Some are longer than others. And some are truer than others. But that never implies any story is worth less than another.

But there is a third lesson I overlooked. And it is one that didn't occur to me until it was playing out before my very own eyes. And it is that no matter how ordinary, or the length, or even the accuracy, every story is worth telling in the end. Because I was learning that it is what we all are in the end; stories. Nothing more. Nothing less.

In all my years of observing the human species from afar, I never thought I would bear witness to a story so grand that it would demand to be told. Its words have been accused of relaying a myth. Of spelling out a tale meant only for bedtime stories. But I tell you now that every syllable speaks the truth. Call me what you will, that I am a fool who has been tricked into the delusion of a fairy tale. For it is only if the truest of readers believe in these pages that they shall see.

It is a story that has long been painted against the sky, every word growing a darker shade of color as dawn wears into dusk. A tale foretold by the stars themselves, who conceal its paragraphs well within the patterns of their constellations. A story that will live long through the ages. Upon the tongues of many, in the eye of countless, and within the hearts of millions.

And it is even when the sun had set for the last time, when the moon has risen from the horizon for one final night, when the universe itself has perished into the inevitable darkness that encroaches it and swallows it under until it is nothing more than the dust drifting through the endless void of the unknown; that this story will flourish.

Their lives were written from the very beginning - in the dark ink that bleeds off the pages when read aloud. From the first breath they took to the moment they lay eyes on the world to the first step they trod upon the earth, their paths were destined tomeet, their stars forever crossed in the skies, and their souls intertwined the way only a vine coils around a tree.

It is amongst everyone from Andromeda to Vulpecula that their story was whispered of. And it was from my fellow companions in the skies that I learned it was a story of longing and loneliness. Of freedom and fun. Of danger and fear. Of heartache and loss. Of losing and finding. Of possibility and even hope. So turn the page dear reader, and read the truth. The words of fate. The sentences written with fun and composed of freedom. The ink bleeding of danger and fear. The paragraphs spelled of heartache and loss. The chapters scrawled of losing and finding. A tale ending with possibility and hope. Of letters painted in the skies and exchanged between stars.

Still convinced of my foolishness? Well then, if I cannot persuade you of my of my words, then perhaps you should stop listening and start reading. Or better yet, start believing. I am the Man in the Moon, guardian to the earth and all its inhabitants. This tale however, was not mine to write, only mine to tell. So believe dear reader, and you shall see the true tale of Jack Frost and the Snow Queen.


	2. Chapter 1: Winter's Lullaby

1

Winter's Lullaby

Elsa

It all began with a dream. No, not quite a dream. It was anything but. Because, when you have a dream, you rouse from it without either recollection of what occurred in it or who was present in it. But I woke up and I remembered all of it, every last glimpse. So it wasn't a dream. But a nightmare. Because I always remembered my nightmares. But it wasn't even that. It wasn't a nightmare, but rather a memory. A memory returning from a buried past to haunt me. I was reminded of that night. The night the ice shattered like glass and love melted into fear.

_I saw faces. Faces of a familiar sight for sore eyes. Faces drawn in smiles and grins. Sketched in laughter and giggles. Shaded in fun and merriment. I recognized one face as my own. And from the sight of myself, flushed with happiness and gay with joy, I was almost unrecognizable. Almost. I recognized the other as my sister Anna's, with her auburn locks and vibrant blue painting her irises. She was caught in the air with the silk skirts of her nightgown floating behind her and her arms stretched out wide to the sides, her fingers grasping for the flight they searched for. And for a moment, she resembled a bird taking its first flight before the fall. But she wouldn't fall. She wouldn't fall._

_I felt the ice bleed into my veins, it crackled in my very molecules and I could almost hear it. I was so cold. So cold with the ice prickling at my heart with every beat and running my palms pale and clammy. But I felt it in my fingertips. The hope in my veins, the flight in my heart, and the trust in Anna. And she wouldn't fall. She wouldn't fall because I would catch her, not because I had good hands but because I trusted not only her, but myself as well. Or so I did. Once._

_It all happened too fast. It played into time too soon. In a single blink. In one breath. It all happened too fast, and I had to catch up. But I wasn't quick enough. The ice spiraled from my fingertips, but it was too little, too late. I didn't catch her. I couldn't give her the flight before the fall. I only struck her when I wanted to save her. And she fell. Her eyelids flicked shut and she fell to the floor, her limp body rolling to a halt where the snow began to freeze into ice. My feet reacted before my mind did, and all I found running a marathon through my displaced thoughts was that I was half expecting her to wake up. That her eyes would open and reveal to me the brilliant blue they shone. She would leap to her feet from where she lay in the snow and she would flash at me a brilliant grin of all her teeth. But she never did._

_I sank to my knees, feeling my hands come to life around her body and the tears sting at my eyes. I cradled her face in my palms and her cheeks were still warm, still flushed the color of roses from all the different smiles her lips had been bent into only moments ago. I found my voice telling her in words that were barely above a whisper that she was okay, that I've got her, that she was going to be okay. But nothing was okay. Nothing ever would be. How did I know this? Because Anna was no longer smiling. And the silence was all the company I had left._

I was awoken by the faint tapping of melted snow against the window. My eyelids fluttered open the way only a heart beat and a butterfly's wings flit. And the first sight my vision came to focus on after momentarily taking the time to adjust to the darkness looming in my chambers was the snow falling from the ceiling. It formed a curtain around me, and I watched with a held breath as the snowflakes covered the bedspread. They matted my silver tresses flat against my forehead, and I had to twist and twine the loose strands back into my plait. And I held my breath not because I had fallen into a spell of awe, but because I couldn't breathe. I felt my chest begin to constrict under the pounding of my heart, making it too difficult to inhale and even more so to exhale.

I clutched my chest, trying to remind my lungs to function as lungs. Trying to remember how to breathe. To remind my tongue of the taste of air, and my nose of the scent of it. Finally I began to pant, almost gasping even. And although the air tasted dry and flavorless, I reckoned it was better to struggle for breath than to not find any at all.

I could still see her face when my eyes were closed, and, if anything, the image of her was even more clear as cut glass when they were open. I was sleepwalking. Treading through this endless nightmare. Her face was all I saw. Her cheeks drained of their rosy flush and were the shade of chalk. Her eyes were closed, her eyelashes flecked with flakes of snow, and I kept expecting them to open. To blink. To at the very least flutter. But they remained closed. Never to be opened. She was all I saw. The thought of Anna was both a relief and a burden. A relief because I knew she was alive. A burden because I harmed her. Something I never could have convinced myself possible of. But I did. I hurt my sister. The hands I held in my lap, the hands that held and cradled her as an infant, are the same hands that inflicted imperial pain upon her. I was the reason I would never be able to look her in the eye again. The reason I would never trust neither her nor myself again. These hands were only created for destruction. I made a mess of everything.

My ears twitched when the collective murmur of voices penetrated the walls caging me in from all four corners. I untangled my legs from the knot of sheets and, upon lowering myself to the floor, I tiptoed across the room, wincing only a few times when the boards creaked from under me. I pressed against the door that separated me from the world beyond, and held my breath when the room fell silent as I listened to the commotion and tried to place the voices along with the words they spoke. But when the wall proved to be too thick to listen through, I found myself curling my fingers around the handle and twisting the door open a crack.

Candlelight spilled into the room, and through the sliver I peered at Mother and Father, who held in his hands the ever restless Anna. I caught myself giggling at her stuborness and refusal to be lain down to rest for the night. She put up a struggle by climbing all up and down Father, tugging on anything her fingers could grasp-ears, hair, nose-and nudging anything that would catch his attention-knees, shoulders, and feet.

"Come along Anna, it's late already Love. If we don't get you to bed soon, you'll never sleep a wink." Mother cooed in her soft voice. And I thought to myself that if silk made music, it would sound like her voice.

"But I'm not tired. The sky's awake, so I'm awake!" She pouts. And I swear that if her eyes could get any bigger they would surely bulge out of their sockets.

"And you may rise as early as you wish with the crack of dawn. But as of this moment, you will scurry into bed as quickly as your little legs can carry you. You wouldn't want old Boogie Man to chase you under the covers now do you?" And scurry Anna did, into her chambers and under the covers before Father was able to utter his last word.

He chuckled to himself and followed Mother into the room where they tucked Anna snuggly in between the blankets. I watched my mother's hand come to tenderly stroke Anna's hair, and found myself cringing with a twist of my heart when her fingertips came to thread themselves into the white streak that colored Anna's auburn locks. I had to avert my eyes for a moment and force the air in and out of my lungs before I was able to breathe again. And, under my shallow respirations, the next sound I heard was Mother's voice. She sang softly, barely above a whisper. It was the chirp of a bird, smooth as a river, and everything the crack of dawn should sound like.

"Wandering child of the earth,

Do you know just how much you're worth?

You have walked this path since your birth,

You were destined for more.

There are those who will tell you you're wrong,

They will try to silence your song,

But right here is where you belong,

So don't search anymore.

You are the dawn of a new day that's waking,

A masterpiece still in the making,

The blue in an ocean of grey.

You are right where you need to be,

Poised to inspire and succeed,

You'll look back and you'll realize one day.

In your eyes there is doubt

As you try to figure it out

But that's not what life is about,

So have faith, there's a way.

Though the world may try to define you,

It can't take the light that's inside you,

So don't you dare try to hide,

Let your fear fade away.

You are the dawn of a new day that's waking,

A masterpiece still in the making,

The blue in an ocean of grey.

You are right where you need to be,

Poised to inspire and succeed,

You'll look back and you'll realize one day.

You are the dawn of a new day that's waking,

A masterpiece still in the making,

The blue in an ocean of grey,

Soon you'll find your own way."

The words spread their wings and took flight from her lips. Every letter as delicate as the shed teardrops of grey colored clouds. Every breath fragile as she whispered each syllable in between her lips. My eyelids drew closed and I felt the words leaking from my mother's lips wash over me. Listened to the story they sang softly to me. Each letter opened a door, a door to where I didn't know. It may have been nowhere, it may have been somewhere, and it could have been anywhere. But doors nonetheless, being unlocked and opened to reveal the secrets they hid and had kept silent until now.

I wanted to know their secrets. I wanted to hear them in every syllable. I could keep a secret. I always had a talent for it. I absorbed and locked the words in my heart where they would forever remain untouched. My mother's song became mine, and her words were what I wanted to fall asleep with whispering in my ears and wake up to singing in between my thoughts.

My eyelids rose and the first sight I was met with was my father. His features were erased blank, his eyes glassy and almost like hollow holes dug in his skull in the dim light. His expression was difficult to read, but he didn't allow me the chance to try before clicking the door closed.

Moments ticked by. Moments that turned into minutes, which turned into hours, until the clock could be heard striking midnight from some distant corridor in the palace. Each chime struck my heart and slammed into my chest. And I couldn't breathe. I couldn't breathe. I was so stunned my feet wouldn't budge. So petrified the air wouldn't find me. I felt the walls closing in around me, caging me in until I became so small I couldn't be seen. And if I couldn't be seen, I couldn't be heard. And if I couldn't be heard, I couldn't be felt. And if I couldn't be felt, I was nothing. Nothing more than a ghost treading through life.

With what little strength I had left after the blow, (if I ever had any at all), I carried myself across the room where the window sat. I tugged on the cuff of my sleeve and wiped the glass clean of the fog that coated it, and already the first snowflakes of what would be a long and frigid winter began to melt against it. A valley sprinkled in snow stretched across the plains of Arrendelle below. The earth glittered white with not a print to dent the fresh blanket. The treetops stood tall in the landscape, drawing and shading the background with the mountains in the distance sketching the horizon.

The beam of a full moon rested on the shoulders of the kingdom, it was painted in every shade of silver and the sky behind it in every tone of black. And it intrigued me that something as bright as light and something as dark as night could be so close, yet so far. The line between the two colors was so thin yet so thick at the same time. And I was afraid it was a line that existed in us all. And that it was up to us which side of it we wished to be on. As for me, I didn't know anymore. I didn't know. The colors were so much apart of each other that they had merged to create grey in me and I was suddenly not so sure. And I wasn't sure I wanted to find out.

I was so lost in this endless ocean of thoughts deep in depth that I didn't become aware of my parents' presence until their hands had come to rest on each of my shoulders. But I didn't feel them. All ten of their fingers, I didn't feel any of them. Their touch went right through my skin, and I didn't feel them. I was no longer here. I was no longer theirs. I was no longer Elsa. I didn't know what I was. And I was too afraid to find out.

"Elsa, I know this isn't easy for you," He faltered, trying to appear as if he was collecting his thoughts but he was not trying to remember what he was intending to say so much as running out of words to console me. "But I promise everything will improve for the better... You'll see."

They each pecked me on either side of my temple and left the room just as quietly as they had entered. And just as they left me to drown in the restless sea of my mind, they left the last of Father's words to wash over me. But they didn't wash over me. They didn't wash over me because I couldn't hear them anymore. They washed through me instead. And I felt the their full weight bear down on me as I crumpled to the floor with my last sight between the tears pooling in my eyes before drifting off to sleep being the moon hanging over me, and I swear that I caught a tear stray from his round edge. And I thought to myself that if sorrow was a color, it would be painted the ominous shade of blue his eyes seemed to deepen into - sad with no end to the color.

* * *

Jack

Jack Frost.  
That was my name.

How did I know this?  
The moon told me so.  
It was all he had ever told me.

Those were the first and last words he ever spoke to me.  
And he never uttered a sound before or since.  
At least nothing but the silence.

So I had to be either foolish or mad to think that he would answer my words now. Or possibly even both... But here I was nonetheless. Hiding in plain sight high up in the treetops. My feet dangled on either side of the limb I sat on, leaving all ten of my toes easy to spot from this height. Easy. But not easy enough. I had mastered the art of hiding. Of losing oneself to what was plain in sight. I was too good a hider with no seeker to find me. Ready or not, here I come. Here I come, ready or not.

His silence was especially deafening tonight. So loud I couldn't hear myself think. So suffocating I couldn't breathe. Did he do so intentionally? Was he trying to tell me something that no words could explain through the silence? Who really lay up there? Who was the Man in the Moon? Was I being tested? Was he trying to break me one way or another? Because it was working. Enough was enough.

The wind's teeth sharpened to its bite with the furl of my hands and all ten of my fingers. A blizzard rose up from the earth and swallowed all that lay in its path, leaving nothing but choas in its wake. And I thought it would swallow the sky if it could. The earth shook in my mind, rattling my bones and buckling my knees underneath me. And it was too much. It was all too much.

The anger rose in me. I felt it seeping into my veins when the scream bulged at the back of my throat. The anger became too hot to handle and the ice too cold to touch. And the scream, this song that I had found in a voiceless bird rendered speechless, as too much to swallow. The cry slipped from my mouth before I could even consider choking it back. But perhaps I didn't want to. Perhaps I was tired of choking it back. Of swallowing the emotions swirling inside me, and taming the storm brewing just underneath my skin. Perhaps I simply wished to be heard for once. To be seen. To be felt.

My mouth fell shut, my cries reduced to silence. The wind carried on, the blizzard dissipating. My fists unfurled into open palms, absorbing what little energy I had left after the storm. But the anger was still there. Still remained where I felt it most. Constantly. He was there constantly. And my glare deepened at him, at the man who hid all too well behind the glow of the moon. Ready or not, here I come. Here I come, ready or not.

I lowered myself to the earth, digging my toes deep into the slush of what would be a long and bitter winter. I would make sure of it. I could promise that. As long as I had been alone, as cold as my heart had been for as long as I could remember, as bitter as I had grown. With a little touch of frost of course. I yanked my hood over my head and took the first step of what would be a long journey. Because I figured I may as well blindly roam the earth in plain sight and see all there was to see while bringing the season of winter along for the ride. Because I was Jack Frost. Forever to wander the world aimlessly as an embodiment of season. As nothing but a silent whisper in the winds of winter. As no more than a ghost wandering through life.

But enough was enough was enough was enough.

* * *

**The song I used is an original song on youtube by adrisaurus. And if you like music that digs deep and breaks your heart in a thousand different beautiful ways, I suggest you go listen to it now;)**


	3. Chapter 2: Mischief & Mayhem

2

Mischief &amp; Mayhem

Jack

"JACK FROST!"

My name came echoing throughout the tunnels, every letter bouncing off the cave walls just as the old bunny hopped after me. I glanced over my shoulder, which was both a gamble and definitely dangerous, to see Bunnymund close in pursuit. I flashed him a devilish grin of pearly whites and began to spray the ground at our feet with ice. The slick surface spread over the grass, coating the dirt, and I began to glide away and out of reach as fast as my bare feet could carry me.

"Come here you weasel!" He bellowed. Every syllable was sharpened with his thick Australian accent, the sound almost like nails scratching at a chalkboard. But it was a sound I had grown accustomed to over the years. The sound of an infuriated Bunny was practically music to my ears. And, knowing that I was the one who caused his vexation, was all the more sweeter. And what was sweeter than music other than a lullaby?

"You'll have to catch me first you overgrown kangaroo!" I yelled over my shoulder, sending a flurry of ice with my words.

He slipped and faltered to his knees, using his hands to reach for balance. But gravity would not be in his favour today. Not while I had anything to say about it. A snowflake materialized at my fingertips. I sucked in a breath and pumped it out of my chest, watching the snowflake flutter away with it. It came to settle on the tip of Bunny's nose, which twitched and squirmed until a sneeze detonated from his pink muzzle. The force was enough to cause his paws to come slipping out from under him and knock him to his rump.

"Bless you." I said with a tip of my head.

He raised a fist clenched with fury and spat every insult in the book at me as far back as the Dark Age went. None of them very kind but all of them sharp like daggers. But they didn't sting because I was cold with a frozen heart and nerves of ice. Nothing could break me.  
He lept to his feet, taking a moment to recover before taking off again. And we found ourselves caught up in a game much like cat and mouse as we scampered through this labyrinth of tunnels. Tag, you're it.

I emerged from the mouth of the cave into the clearing where the grass was slathered in green and the earth was splotched in colors of all shades; from rosy pinks to sky blues to golden yellows. The heart of the Warren, where spring was in full bloom all year round and the river was paint and eggs wandered where they pleased. I ducked out of the way just as he came barrelling out the cave behind me, attempting to tackle me to the ground but I was up in the air faster than he realized and out of reach.

"Oi, get down here and clean up the mess you've made twinkle toes!"

"Why Bunny I was only trying to lend a helping hand." I said innocently with a hand over my chest, my tone offended by his words.

"Well, your help ain't wanted here and neither are those hands! They make a mess of everything!"

I suddenly flinched at his words as though they have swatted me across the face. Finding a certain twinge of pain in them that left me aching, though I couldn't explain why nor could I even begin to fathom how such a little thing as words could cause me harm. But they did, and they hurt. He did it. That overgrown kangaroo actually did it. He broke the ice. But I hid it quickly. Concealing the twitch in my muscles as though I were dodging his insults, and wearing a mask over the cringe my face had contorted into.

"It was just a bit of fun." I had tried countless times in the past to explain this to these hard workers and deadlines. But our routine had gone on so long now. Years worth of stirring up mischief and wreaking mayhem in some area of their respective domains while they busy themselves with their duties and responsibilities of guardianship. And after which we had a lovely debate about the matter of the incident. It was a familiar routine that was once sweet but had recently gone sour on me. It was all too familiar and gone on so long that it all seemed to mean nothing at all anymore. Perhaps I was in need of a new sport to pique my fascination. And soon. Because wandering the earth day after day and night after night with not a soul to speak to was tending to grow a little too tedious.

"If you call making a scrambled breakfast out of my eggs fun then you have another thought coming to ya!"

"What can I say? I enjoy them sunny-side up." I said, twirling my staff absentmindedly in my palm.

"That's it Frost, I'm gonna wipe that grin off your face."

Two boomerangs came slicing through the air en route for me and nearly clipped a silver tress off the top of my head as I swerved out of touch. I then sent them on a detour with a snowball, redirecting them toward each other, and earned the pleasure of watching the wood shavings rain down on Bunny at the collision.

I lowered myself to the ground, standing a little further than arm's length from him. "Quite the fireworks wouldn't you say?" I asked with an upturned lip and a quirk in my brow.

"Why I oughta-" He lunged at me, snatching a handful of my sweatshirt and lifting me off the ground by the collar. But as he took a step, a gaping hole opened up at my feet and before he could get his last word out or his knuckles came into contact with my face, I was swallowed into the depths of the earth.

* * *

Jack

It was as if the ground belched, incapable of digesting me, and upchucked. Because what we're unable to swallow isn't worth tasting. I didn't register the pain of the landing immediately, just the ache of it in my limbs to begin with. It was when I sat up and climbed to my feet that I felt as if my bones were about to shatter and my skull was going to split open any moment now. But it manageed to remain fused together, so maybe old St. Nicholas wasn't so wrong. Maybe I did have a hard head. At least, that's how he phrased it in his constant and futile attempts to keep me out of trouble. He wasn't wrong, but he wasn't quite right either. Just less wrong.

With the assistance of my staff, I staggered to my feet and, at the sight of my surroundings, found myself unsure of where I had landed myself. Night had fallen and the quiet with it, and it was late in the hour judging by the shade of the sky. The moon shone amongst the stars, a silver pearl in navy waters. Of course he was here. He was always here, peering over my shoulder with nothing to say to me. I turned my back on him because two can play at that game.

I sat myself on one of the many boulders that had collected in this nook of the forest and began to rub at my knee with the heel of my palm, trying to massage feeling back into my numb muscles. The trees rustled in the wind, the branches snapping and the twigs popping, but there was no wind. At least none that I could feel. Nor hear.

"Jack Frost."

Jumping to my feet, I gripped my staff in both fists and searched for the source of the voice as my eyes darted through the darkness. "Who said that?" I demanded of the forest.

"Down here."

I glanced down where I was greeted with a most peculiar creature. His height reached no more than my waistline and he was clothed in a shawl of moss and other materials of the woodland. His skin was rough, almost like stone, with a grey texture. But what really captured my glance were his eyes. It was not the color or the shape but the depth of their stare and how deep the color ran. Those dark irises had seen many things. The good and the bad. Many things and many lifetimes. Perhaps even too much had they borne witness to.

"Who are you?" I asked, lowering my staff and loosening my grip. Not because I had already come to trust him, (I didn't trust anyone really), but because I had a distinct hunch that he wasn't the most dangerous threat lurking in these woods.

"I am Pabbie, eldest, keeper, and King of the Trolls. Welcome, Jack Frost, to the Valley of the Living Rock." He dipped into a slight bow as gesture of reception.

"Thanks... But how do you-"

He silenced me with an upheld palm. "Please young spirit, I know exactly who you are and we have long awaited your arrival."

"We?"

Just as the word left my lips, the boulders strewn across the clearing began to quake. I stepped back and watched them roll and tumble toward us, crowding and cornering us in. And just as I became queasy with a bad feeling, each boulder morphed into another troll. Their curious beady eyes blinked up at me and I stared coldly down at them in return. But I didn't mean to.

"A storm is coming and change with it. The good and the bad. The wind is calling to you Guardian."

I almost laughed. Almost. But I stifled it into a chuckle instead. "I'm not a guardian."

"Not yet."

And with that, the trolls despirsed, folding in upon themselves and retreating to the dark corners of the forest. His words still rang in my ears as the clouds rolled in and the midnight storm with it.


	4. Chapter 3: Shades Of Blue

3

Shades Of Blue

Elsa

I woke up just as the sun began to ascend from the horizon. Its golden rays streamed in between the drapes and stung my heavy eyelids. As I rubbed away the drowsiness, it occurred to me that I fell asleep on the floor and that ice had seeped its way in between the boards. I tried, in an unsuccessful attempt nevertheless, to melt it but it hardly affected me anymore. Almost anything never did really.

I staggered to my feet and brushed off my nightgown before even noticing the breakfast tray and gown that Gerda had lain out probably earlier this morning while I was still asleep. The silk skirts were a pale blue and the upper half a dark navy with short sleeves. She even set out a pair of white ballet flats that would never be worn. None of it would. And the food that was warm now would soon run cold and remain untouched.

I made a note to remind Mother and Father to let Gerda know that there was no purpose in her going to the trouble to either feed or dress me when there was nowhere I would be going that would require me to either have the strength or be dressed, or when there was no reason for me to leave for that matter. Or rather, too many reasons for me to stay.

Laughter, though distant and muffled, could be heard from outside. And although I didn't wish to bear witness to yet another day beginning without me, nor see the world beyond these four cornered walls shut me out while I shut myself in, I just couldn't seem to resist unfastening the window and peering over the village that lay below. The cool breath of winter spilled into the room as I watched children of no more than my age frolick and make merry in the snow.

And then it happened. It happend much too soon for me to stop, and before my mind could even process it was happening. But it happened; slowly and then all at once. And it was all at once that I didn't feel even the slightest twinge of regret as the silver tendrils of ice spiraled from my fingertips.

I endeavored to search for the guilt I should have felt welling up inside of me from the use of my powers, since the last time I used them was that fateful evening spent in the Grand Hall. But it was nowhere to be found. All there was to feel was the relief and eventual delight that gradually washed over me as the snowflakes fell from between my fingers and fluttered through the open window.

A smile was drawn from my lips as the children grasped at the air and stole snowflakes from above their heads. And it was a tremendous relief not only to be using my abilities in a positive manner once again, but to be conjuring something from nothing. To be creating what I made best, as I'd forgotten what it'd felt like when the snow melted between your fingers as you built men, drew angels, and rolled snowballs. But I felt it now, and relished the cold nipping at my veins. It felt better than this isolation had ever hurt, and I yearned to feel that way as much as I possibly could.

But, unfortunately, the relief I felt while using my abilities was briefly lived as my father soon entered the room, upon which I reacted by folding my hands behind my back and pinching the grin that still lingered into a thin line, which was swollen from chewing at my lips. I felt I'd just committed a felony of which my father had caught me red handed for, and what defense did I have of my innocence? The evidence was written in the open window and in my hands, just beneath the skin. There was no escaping my guilt.

I thought he would be furious - the sour expression he wore in his crooked brows and clenched jawline certainly relayed the scrutiny I was preparing myself for. Yet, I didn't blink for as long as we met eyes, not once. Not even to dry my eyes of the tears that quickly began to water them around the edges. No, he wasn't angry. But he certainly was disappointed, which was far worse than any scolding I'd imagined he had written upon his lips. But not quite as discouraging as when he closed the shutters and fastened the latch in place from behind me. My heart deflated in my chest and my spirits and whatever else remained of my smile with it as he turned me by the shoulders to once more face him through my watery-blue eyes.

"Elsa, we've discussed this. Your mother and I would prefer it if you put your powers to rest for the time being. At least until you've attained some control."

He spoke of my powers as if they were alive. And perhaps they were or perhaps they weren't. I was still trying to grasp both the limitations and extent of my abilities myself. But he spoke of them as if they were a living thing. A living thing that was dangerous, making it imperative that it be restrained.

I nodded ever so slightly, to which he responded with a smile and a tender stroke of my cheek before producing a pair of gloves from his pocket.

"Here," He told me. "The gloves will help." His voice faltered on his last word, as though his confidence in speaking them was wavering.

As he slipped them on, he repeated to me the mantra I had to constantly remind myself of when the ice became too cold to handle. "Conceal it-"

"Don't feel it." I said in reply.

"Don't let it show."

He cradled my cold hands in his warm palms and gave them a gentle but firm squeeze as a kiss was planted upon my scalp of platinum tresses. But despite his sincerest of efforts to put my anxieties at ease, I found doubt weighing my cold heart deep down into the depths of my chest. Because, for a long time, I relied on our mantra. On the words he left suspended between us when he left the room and me behind in my confinement of isolation with it. For a time, those words were the only ones I believed in. So, when the words we had long shared failed me, what was there left to have faith in?

But when I lay in bed and felt, not the tears stinging the backs of my eyes but rather the lack of moisture in them drying them out, I was certain of only one thing; that there were no more tears to shed. And, though I could have been mistaken, I thought I felt five fingers threading themselves in my silver locks as a hand stroked my head. I was under the impression it was father who had returned a little too late to console me, but I could have been mistaken. And I was, in fact, mistaken. For it wasn't father's hand that smoothed my platinum tresses against my skin, and it was awhile before I found out whom the hand belonged to. But I had a feeling they were never far until that time. Maybe, just maybe, they were always there, watching me, and I just didn't know it yet.


	5. Chapter 4: The Caged Bird

4

The Caged Bird

Jack

She caught my attention from the very beginning.

Little was I aware of then of the future The Man in The Moon had in store for me. And how could I have foreseen the destiny he wrote for me in ink when it began just as any other day did? But this day was already different from all the rest. Because, not only could I taste it in the bitter wind, but I could also feel it when I flew here and there nipping at noses and painting patterns of fern and frost on the windowpanes.

The wind was stronger today for one thing. And for another, it seemed to be fighting against me whenever I made an advance. And it was just on the border of Norway and Sweden where I wrestled against its blustery gusts for the direction in which I desired to fly after my attempts at manipulating it resulted in failure. After all, the brewing storm cannot be subdued.

And I knew I was on the doorstep of Norway because my sense of geography had grown quite sharp through the decades of wandering this round globe alone wherever the wind took me. But today it was taking me nowhere. Or at least, it wouldn't allow me to go anywhere else once I landed myself in the mighty kingdom of Arendelle.

I crawled away from the wind's clutches and to my feet, whereupon I dusted the brown cloak draped over my shoulder off of the dust and slush the fabric had collected from the scrape I somehow managed to get myself into.

All around me, citizens plowed through the accumulating slush with coats pulled down to their ankles and scarves wrapped up to their noses to defend their fragile mortal bodies against the harsh winter and rapidly declining temperatures. And I was sorry, not because they weren't immune to the cold like I was, but because they were vulnerable to the cold and I wasn't. But even my sympathy could not surpass the temptation of summoning up a breeze to sting their blind eyes when they walked through me.

But even still, for the first time since awakening in that frozen pond all those countless years ago that I just couldn't seem to keep tally on, the mischief I could stir up just wasn't enough to wash away the forlorn expression I wore and gazed up at the towering outline of the castle with.

And then I heard it. I heard it not under that wind's howls, but over them. I heard it over the crunch of the snow wherever anyone stepped. I heard it over the thumps in my chest and the breaths bleeding between my lips. It was an echo in the silence. The cry of a bird flying on the wings of the wind. The voice where we were voiceless.

I heard it, and followed the sound where it led me. Where her vocal chords sang with laughter within the walls of the castle, in which she was caged like a bird rendered flightless but not yet voiceless. And she caught my attention from the very beginning.

And I believe it had as much to do with her platinum tresses twisted and twined in the plait cascading down her shoulder, or her skin glistening the shade of fresh-fallen snowflakes, or, (much to my utter astonishment), the beautiful magic she weaved from such fragile hands, or that her smile, as delicate and feeble as it was, not only bent in all the right angles and curved for all the right reasons but fit perfectly on her mouth almost as if someone had taken her lips and sculpted them.

But if anything and everything, it was her eyes and the twinkle that sparkled in them that captured my gaze and held it hostage from the moment I laid eyes on her. The deep shade of blue they were painted was so enticing that once you fell into their gaze, there was no falling out. There was only being caught when you fell down and flying afterwards.

She conducted the snow with a crooked grin and hands that trembled only slightly, as if she was still trying not to learn, but to remember how to smile. To remind herself once again of what happiness felt like when it upturned your lips and tickled you with laughter until your stomach ached for all the right reasons.

But also as if she was afraid of enjoying herself too much and felt unworthy of such a euphoric emotion that she'd much rather feel none at all. And so she concealed whatever floated to the surface, including the storm brewing just beneath her skin. And, as I mentioned before, the brewing storm cannot be subdued.

But her jubilation was briefly lived when the man, whom I immediately gathered to be the King and also her father, (though I could find no resemblance between the two), closed the shutters and hastily drew her away from the window.

I wiped away at the condensation coating the window, through which I peered just as he produced a pair of gloves from his pocket and slid them gently onto her tiny hands. A few words of which I couldn't quite catch were exchanged between them before he left the room and her alone to let them sink in.

But they didn't sink in. They pulled her under. Too far under. So far that she couldn't catch her breath as the teardrops that never dropped stung her eyes. And she lay there, motionless on the bed with her face hidden in the pillows. And I just couldn't leave her. Not alone. Never again.

I jimmied the pane open with the crook of my staff and, even though I was acutely aware that she would neither hear nor see me, I tiptoed to her side. I knew that any act of reassurance or consolation was useless, but I stroked her head of silver nevertheless and was careful of how I handled her for fear if I touched her wrong she would shatter like the fragile piece of glass she had become as she endeavored to remain in tact. Or at least to keep her balance on the thin ice she teetered on.

I could tell that she spent a lot of her time crying. Perhaps even too much of it. And if not physical tears dripping on the outside, she cried on the inside, and I wanted to catch every last one of them that fell. We were suffering in silence. She was the unheard, I was the unseen. We were the ghosts hiding in plain sight wherever anyone turned a blind eye on us. Ready or not, here I come. Here I come, ready or not.

I didn't know who she was then. Nor did I know that it was possible to be affected by someone in such a way that she did me. That I could smile her smiles and laugh her laughs and shed her tears. But I was about to find out. I had to find out. Because no matter where the wind wished to take me, I wasn't going anywhere. At least nowhere without her.


	6. Chapter 5: A Mournful Tune

5

A Mournful Tune

Jack

Not once did I leave her side, and it wasn't because there wasn't anywhere left that I hadn't been before but because there was nowhere I wished to be without her. It was difficult to accurately explain, but there was something about her that just kept me on firm ground. It wasn't even her abilities that fascinated me so, (although I was still thoroughly mystified by them), but she as a person alone.

She guarded herself like a secret. Like a light at the end of a dark tunnel. Like words buried deep in the scratches of a script. Like a constellation hidden amidst the stars on a dark night. She only revealed what she felt was safe to from underneath this veneer of masks and gloves she wore to conceal what she was too afraid to feel.

Her every action went unnoticed, her every word unheard, and even her very presence was virtually nonexistent to the naked eye. Like me, she'd already perfected the art of invisibility. The only difference was that, unlike me, it seemed so natural to her, which was what I could neither watch nor adjust to. She was still so young after all. So young with so little to care for. So why was she as troubled as she was? Unfortunately that was a question that wouldn't be answered for awhile.

But in the meantime she sat on the edge of her bed with little knowledge of an immortal spirit hovering over her shoulder, who peered curiously down at the book she held ajar in her palms. Though I could read very little, so I wasn't studying the words so much as the arc of her brows and scrunch of her nose when she frowned at a certain part in the novel or the twinkle in her eyes when she smiled at another or the way her lips moved as she read quietly aloud to herself. Through her soft voice and vivid description she brought the story to life in my mind until Gerda, her nanny, poked her head in the door and summoned Elsa for her lessons, all of which she took seperate from her younger sister Anna for some reason that I was still ignorant to despite all I thought I'd learned about her during my extended, (and uninvited), stay in Arendelle.

And for the next few hours I would observe with distaste and irritation from a nearby corner of their luxuriously furnished and generously stocked library as a, not unkind so much as unfeeling, governess chided Elsa when she swayed in the dip of her curtsy or strained her neck under the weight of the books piled atop her head or stumbled in her Norwegian. It was only when Elsa was left alone to play through a few sheets of cello music while the governess went to inquire about tea that my fists unclenched from around my staff, returning the color to my white knuckles.

She balanced the weight of the instrument against her body as easily as her wiry fingers threaded themselves between the strings, and with such poise and beauty did they play in spite of its size that I was able to think of nothing else. I didn't recognize the melody, but I had become familiar with the cello over the years and had always considered it a sad instrument with an almost mournful tune to it. And mourn together in harmony they did as the music seemed to steal the breath from her body, which swayed with the rise and fall of the notes she plucked. And long after she lowered the bow did their desolated weeps fill the air until silenced by the governess's return, upon which the lesson soon concluded and Elsa was sent off to bed.

It was beyond those four-cornered walls that she listened to yet another evening go on without her as she lay restless in bed without even the energy to nibble at the dinner tray Gerda had delievered earlier. It wasn't until late in the night that she was finally able to drift off, but even then she was never at rest; for it was every night that all the fear and anxiety she concealed during the day came to life in the shadows of her nightmares.

For as long as she slept I'd remain utterly helpless as icicles materialized from the floor and frost was splattered against the walls in her struggle to unwind the web of her nightmares. But from the darkest corners of her mind there was no escape, and all would go on with nothing but vague whimpers and incoherent protests from her until she awakened late in the night in an entanglement of sheets and to a ceiling drizzling of snowflakes.

Moonlight streamed in through the window and cast enough light upon her ashen complexion to catch a glimpse of the vacant expression her features had contorted into, which her hollow blue eyes didn't even blink twice through at the fernlike patterns climbing up the walls around her. And it was this that frightened me most of all; not the potential danger her abilities were capable of but that there was so little of herself left that she couldn't even be bothered to be troubled by the effect her nightmares had on her anymore.

She climbed from her bed and stumbled through the darkness until she reached the bench at the window where I'd settled. She hoisted herself up and so small had she curled up at the edge that I didn't even need to shuffle over, (not that it was necessary either way because I was both intangible and invisible as far as she was concerned). So never was my presence in jeopardy of being discovered. At least until it was.

Which occurred when she began to trace images in the fogged window. From doodles of snowmen to the intricate web of snowflakes, the images seemed to come alive off the glass from her touch. But it was with a little touch of frost from the palm of my hand that the snowman danced cleanly off the window. Of course she withdrew her hand immediately while her teeth bit what little smile had formed into extinction, and only when the snowman addressed her with a slight bow and a tip of his hat did the tension bracing her body visibly subside.

She extended a cautious finger, which the snowman shook eagerly in his little stick-arms before floating off on his restless feet around the room. As she marveled at his mobility, I conjured up the snowflakes next from the window, which immediately peeled off the glass and into my palms before I blew them away to drift amid the room. Together we watched the snowflakes swirl around the snowman and his tip-tappety feet until the magic ran out, melting them instantly.

And just as quickly did the grin flee from her lips and the gleam of amusement in her eyes diminish as the moment passed. It was then that I placed my hand on hers - partly to console her but also with the deepest desire to feel another's flesh against my own. But with such force did astonishment strike me when her head quirked up and her eyes found mine that the wind was knocked from me, leaving my head reeling for a breathless moment.

The room fell still, as if everything in it was holding its breath, and I was suddenly aware of everything from her widening eyes to my cool palm draped over hers to the elevation in my heartbeat. Though what it anticipated I couldn't guess until it happened; for it wasn't her touch but rather the response of her fingers as they intertwined with mine that told me she didn't stare at me in disbelief but rather realization that I'd been there for awhile, I always was.


	7. Chapter 6: Dangerous Like The Dark

6

Dangerous Like The Dark

Elsa

I didn't think I'd believe my eyes when I saw him. And how could I when he appeared out of thin air? How could I possibly trust what they told me when they were still so heavy with sleep? For it would be a long time before I could cleanse my dreams of this nightmare that still plagued my mind long after I'd opened my eyes.

_Everything was pitch black to begin with. I stood alone in what appeared to be a vast void filled of nothing but darkness that seemed to extend for miles in all directions. I moved at a slackened pace through the emptiness, using my other senses for guidance, which seemed to grow sharper and keener where I was blind. But all that was to be seen was black, all that was to be felt was emptiness, and all the was to be heard were my sluggish footsteps._

_The room was suddenly lit by an unkmown source, revealing my surroundings to me in a flash of an intense glare from which I had to shield my eyes. Whiteness filled my vision in blurry splotches when I removed my hand, all of which I had to blink into focus as my vision adjusted to the change in lighting. But the sight it adjusted to was not one I wished to see nor would I ever be able to blink it away._

_All around me trees towered in the background, people mingled amidst the crowded area of townsquare, ships sailed beyond the harbour, and snowflakes fell from pale skies. Or so they would have if not suspended where they hovered nor for the ice that froze the waves that should have been rolling in, the people who should have been hustling and bustling, and the trees that should have been swaying in the wind that wasn't there still and silent._

_I felt only the cold creeping in around my heart, heard only the silence respond to my choked sobs, and saw only their faces - each still relaying the last emotion they felt, which varied from wide grins and bright eyes to creased brows and pursed lips, before the expression was frozen onto their face without knowing that it would it would be their last - when it began to dawn on me not what, but who exactly was responsilbe for this devestation._

_I wanted to look away. I tried to look away from the mess I'd made of everything. But everywhere I turned was where another statue stood. That is, until one in particular caught my eye. And it wasn't one I could look away from. I hastened toward her and gingerly caressed her face in my palms upon reaching her, almost as if terrified I might shatter her. The terror in her features was unmistakable, and I realized that she was the only victim among them who had the time to let the fear sink in. So twisted was her face and glassy were her no-longer blue eyes that I barely recognized her because fear did somthing strange to people, and I didn't realize until now exactly what it was; it didn't change them nor did it prove their cowardice - (after all, it took a brave soul to be afraid) - so much as reveal their true colors underneath the person you thought you knew._

_But she was still Anna. Still my positively optimistic and abundantly energetic little sister with whom I made angels and men in the snow when we were too wide-eyed to sleep and who took pleasure in acting as my partner in crime whenever the chocolate inexplicably vanished from the kitchen pantry. Because sisters were for always were they not? The automatic friends who were built-in for life without reason and without question. The person you trusted wholly and loved unconditionally._

_Which was why I couldn't lie to her. Not again. Not like the last time. Never again would I hold her in my arms as I told her that I had her and that everything would be okay. Because how could I when it wasn't? How could I when it wouldn't be anymore?_

_I was already choking back sobs by the time I crumbled to the ground, which was what disgusted me so bitterly because what right did I have to cry? The answer was no right. No right at all and not because I hurt her in this way but because I'd long ago lost the right to love as a sister should or even feel as a person should._

_I couldn't look at her again, so barely did I notice everything around me disappear or the darkness come creeping back in or even the voice speak when it did. I__t was unlike any I'd ever heard before; the very sound of it preyed at my mind. It was cold and empty and dangerous like the dark where it seemed to take a life of its own._

_"You did this Elsa. This mess is of your making, and now you'll have to live with the consequences that come with it."_

_It said, and I didn't even try to argue. But I never answered either, not because we were always taught not to speak to strangers when we were young or even because I wouldn't know what to say but because fear seemed to have a firm grip on my cold heart, leaving hardly anything left of me and realizing this was what terrified me more than any nightmare._

_" Embrace the fear Elsa."_

_At length its taunts ceased, leaving me alone to drown in the dark with its words pulling me under wgen I slept and to walk in the veil of my shadow when I was awake._

* * *

I was drenched in a cold sweat when I awoke, which broke across my forehead and matted my blonde locks flat against the back of my damp neck. As I slowly recovered from such a rotten night, I first became aware of my rapidly beating heart over the rain that pounded against the window outside - although both were equally as loud and pounded heavily in my ears.

Darkness filled the room except for the single beam of moonlight that fell in through the slit between the drapes, and of which seemed to barely reflect off the icicles surrounding my bed. Frost crackled up the wallpaper and snow descended all around me where I lay tangled in the sheets amid the darkness until I grew weary of trying to count how many flakes had collected in my eyelashes before moving to the bench positioned at the window whereupon I rubbed and blinked the snow from my eyes.

Rain dripped across the glass but somehow managed to steer clear of my view of the moon, which shone like a silver pearl in a sea of darkness up in the starless sky that night. He offered no sign of tears that evening, and not long after did the rain cease for the night, which I couldn't help but feel _was _his sign. As if he was trying to tell me that something was about to happen and I just didn't know it yet. And how could I when he'd remained silent even after all the countless other occasions I'd confided in him for so long?

In all those years of isolation and lonliness, I'd never though he was listening. But maybe, just maybe, somebody out there was. And listen most intently they did; for it was they who conjured a tap-dancing snowman from the window. And just when it seemed my mind would never be erased of the image of my sister's body encased in ice, he danced around the room with a trail of snowflakes on his heels and a bounce in his step, allowing me to forget for even a moment the horrors I had witnessed however small a gift it would seem.

Awe struck me stupified in the mind and dumb in face as I watched him move as easily as if an invisible hand were manipulating him like a puppet without any strings attached until he melted away before my eyes but not without first bidding me a polite farewell. Not long after did I once again begin to slouch under the weight of my nightmare and was my delight replaced by despair growing heavily in the pit of my heart where I seemed to feel it the most.

I tried to close my eyes, somehow hoping that the tighter I shut them the easier it would be made to wish everything away, but it only seemed to be made worse; for the image of the fear glossy in Anna's iced face was made all the more vivid in the dark. Because everything that creeped and crawled and scared came alive when the lights were off, and it was with each passing day that I was finding them harder to turn back on.

But it was that night when I learned that not only everything that creeped or crawled or scared was vivid in the dark nor was everything about it cold or empty. There were, in fact, somethings that were pleasant about the darkness, one of which was physical contact, which you seemed to feel more deeply when your sight was crippled. As if your skin was made more than just skin when the lights were out. And it was the ghost of his hand that grazed mine in the dark, which came as a bit of a shock when the cold radiating from his collided with the cold circulating from mine.

We were two ends of the same storm; he was the flurry and I was the blizzard. Together we were a force to be reckoned with. But that night, we were two ghosts who were seen only by our polar opposite. And when his hand held mine it felt better than any ache of loneliness had ever hurt. Ever. And suddenly I couldn't breathe, not while my hand touched his or when I saw him for the first time; and it wasn't because I couldn't believe my eyes but because I realized that I'd known for awhile that he'd been there. And for a long time he always was.


	8. Chapter 7: Hiding And Seeking

7

Hiding And Seeking

Elsa

"Who are you?" I asked, but I knew even before he replied what his answer would be; for I'd long since suspected his near presence. Not because the room instantly felt colder with him in it but because I'd always known he was out there somewhere - nipping at noses and painting patterns of fern and frost on the windowpanes.

He was somewhere until he was before my very eyes, leaving us both at a sudden loss for words as his dumbstruck expression mirrored mine and his brilliant blue eyes narrowed as if he was trying to make sense of me. But what he could make sense of he grinned broadly at, revealing mouthful of pearly-whites that glistened even in the dark.

At length he spoke, and though it was with sheer disbelief his voice retained a sense of tenderness in his words that made it suddenly tempting to fall asleep to as easily as if it were a lullaby. And I knew from then on that I wanted nothing more then for his voice to be the last thing I fell asleep with at night and the first thing I woke up with in the morning, and that if I ever had the choice of who spoke my name last it would undoubtedly be him. "You can _see_ me?"

I nodded without a moment's hesitation, which both thrilled and frightened me that I was somehow so comfortable in a stranger's company. But he somehow wasn't a stranger. To me, he'd felt like someone I'd known from afar without ever having lain eyes on, and yet many times had I seen him before; he'd just been hiding all too well.

He laughed to himself at my response, softly at first and then almost hysterically as everything from his face to his posture, which was agressively crooked where he knelt on the bench, seemed to light up in the dark. And from there he leapt into the air where he, (much to my surprise), remained hovering and performed a series of somersaults followed by a jubilant shout or two while I anxiously watched from the floor and even attempted to prevent his fall whenever he purposefully descended a few feet before ascending once more even though I was well aware that I couldn't carry his weight. It was when he pecariously began to sway from my chandelier that I was obliged to ask it of him to maintain minimal noise for fear of causing damage or alerting an employee of the evening duty.

The ecstasy still burned intensely in his eyes underneath his tousled silver hair long after he'd landed, which seemed to grow of its own accord without either a purpose or an agenda and curled around his ears. His hand was cool against mine when he held it in his and carefully traced his fingers along the creases in my palm as if he was either trying to memorize what skin felt like or convince himself that he could actually touch and be touched.

"You can see me." He quietly repeated, as if the more he said it the truer it became, when his eyes bore so heavily into mine that I suddenly felt exposed and had to look away. But not before blushing slightly at which he graciously smiled, which only made my cheeks redden even more so, and I suddenly felt dangerous. Almost as if all this emotion was too much for one person to feel, and from which I quickly needed a distraction.

"How did you do that?" I asked without looking at him, but I didn't need to because already I felt the grin spreading in his lips and mischief glinting in his irises.

"Do what?"

I made myself look at him then, which was made easier by the solace he seemed to offer in the twinkle of his kind eyes. And seeing this, I inhaled deeply and steeled my nerves before mustering forth the small but steady voice I needed to say what I did next.

"Fly."

He offered me another grin, one even wider and toothier than the last, and his hand with it. "I can show you if you'd like your Highness." He said with a gracious bow at the waist. And with his words I caught a brief whiff of his breath, which smelled sweetly of peppermint and cinnamon as if Christmas had come early this year in his mouth.

I giggled at his mock-chivalry, which along with his irresistable charismatic charm was spell-binding, and just barely had I composed myself when I took his hand and curiously watched as a sharp gust of wind burst through the window with a swift flourish of the staff he held in his other hand. But little did I realize it had swept us up with it until I began to feel my feet leaving the floor. I clung tightly to the cloak draped across his broad shoulder where I hid my face in fright, but whether it was of the height or the fall that came after the rise I couldn't tell.

He must have caught the quiet gasp that fled my lips and felt the tension in my furled fists because almost instantly did his grip tighten in even the slightest as he whispered, "Open your eyes Princess, I won't let you fall."

Slowly, my grip on his arm loosened and left only the faintest of nail marks in his pale skin, which quickly faded as I opened my eyes to find the floor far below us. A lump formed far down in the back of my throat, which made it all the more effort to swallow before I was able to soothe my nerves enough to extend my arms out to either side as we veered the corner and looped around the chandelier more than once at a moderate pace.

I glanced up in time to catch a glimpse of the curve in his lips and twinkle in corner of his eye as our pace gradually increased before I was caught and bashfully averted my eyes. Yet I could still feel his smile long after I'd looked away, especially when ice spiralled from the tip of his staff in silver tendrils, which erupted into a flurry of snowflaked before my awestruck eyes.

In my palms I cradled the delicate flakes, which remained frozen by my touch, and studied them closely to discover that their particular design vastly differed from mine. They were more silver than blue and smoother around the edges. But it was the sincere hand by which they were constructed that really set them apart as if each snowflake was an aspect of who he was.

The snowflake was whisked from my palm as we darted throughout the room, compelling me to grasp his sleeve once more just when he whispered against my platinum locks, "Hold on."

Before I could even consider bracing myself, made a direct plummet for the floor where he carefully eased me onto my feet but not without first assisting me to properly balance as I endeavored to familiarize myself with standing once again on firm ground.

I brushed my ruffled locks from my eyes and wound them back into my plait while he praised my apparent hidden talent for flying, compliments to which I could barely muster a timid reply of gratitude. I was quicker to retreat back inside myself than I'd thought as silence suddenly fell between us and soon even the distant howl of a lone wolf could be heard from beyond my window, to which the shutters flapped noisily against the frame and I would have shut them if my hands hadn't been so caught up in squirming incessantly behind my back. I would have spoken too if only I knew what to say. But I seemed to be at a loss for words as the moment's ecstasy seemed to ebb from my grasp.

But he seemed to know exactly which words to select in order to paint over the unpleasantness. "Well," he said as he raked five long fingers through his silver hair. "I suppose I had better let you rest Princess."

"Elsa!" I blurted before he could turn away. I swallowed the thick lump still obstructing the back of my throat as the words slowly found their way to my lips. "My name is Elsa."

A smile curled his mouth then; slowly at first and then all at once. And it was all at once that something seemed to lift from my chest in even the slightest - something heavy and winged that I hadn't realized had been there so long until it was partially gone.

"Well Elsa, my name is Jack. Jack Frost."

_Jack Frost. _The name suited him as much as it was meant for no one else. And it was a name I almost told him I already knew but didn't quite know how - he wasn't a fairytale or a mere myth after all. He was larger than life itself and sometimes there just weren't words for treasures such as he was.

"I'll be back in the morning then." He said as he knelt before me and gave my hand one last squeeze. It was as I relished his ever so gentle touch that I snuck a quick but meticulous glance at his eyes, which, if you looked closely at, had the faint pattern of a snowflake printed around his dark pupil.

He released my hand then and sauntered to the window, but before he could fly into the night and beyond from which he might never return I barely whispered, "Wait."

He was at my disposal in no time and awaited my bidding with baited breath and an eager light in his eyes that I'd never before seen on anyone. Not even my parents, who never gave me that look - they had at one time but that was then. This was now. Now I was at worst a perilous monster and at best a mystery beyond solving in their eyes. But when Jack looked at me it was as if I was being seen for the first time since this endless charade of hide and seek began. And it occurred to me that perhaps all this time I wasn't hiding too well; maybe, just maybe I only needed the right seeker.

"Will-will you stay with me?" I managed to enunciate clearly enough that he heard but quiet enough that the wolf's cries could still be heard some miles away.

"Of course Elsa," he said so firmly it was as if he believed in his words as much as I did him. And I couldn't appear to help the slight flush that rose in my cheeks at the mere sound of my name spoke from his lips in his voice. "Always."

Into bed I crawled with him following close behind as he carefully drew the covers around my neck. Sleep weighed heavily in my eyelids the moment my head was lain on the pillow and I managed to drift off without difficulty with my last glimpse being of Jack sitting at the foot of my bed. And I realized all at once that, for the first night in a long time, I wasn't afraid for when sleep consumed me.


	9. Chapter 8: Touched By The Moon

8

Touched By The Moon

Jack

_Elsa._

Her name was still on my mind long after I'd tucked her into bed. Had it ever even left? No. Would it ever leave? Of course not. And I didn't want to be without it. Not when my mind was wide awake with the sound of it and everything that came with it; from the softness of her hands to the various shades of blue in her eyes to the crooked angles her lips bent into when she allowed even the vaguest trace of a smile to cross her face.

"Elsa." I whispered beneath my breath just so I could hear it out loud, which was twice as nice as silently mulling it over until I was light in the head. And anyway it sounded better out loud, in fact, her name was _meant _to be said out loud; for a name bearing such elegance and strength in its every syllable couldn't possibly remain unspoken. And I would have cranked the window open and shouted it across the serene city-scape if not for the risk of awakening her, (as it was she didn't sleep nearly enough).

But tonight she slept as easily as a baby. And it wasn't by the faint smile drawn in her swollen red lips that I was able to tell this but by the golden tendrils of sand that drifted in from the window and hovered above where her head rested upon the pillow. It seemed the Sandman had whisked her mind off to far away places in a world that only existed in dreams.

I caressed the sand in my palm, letting it fall between my fingers, and from it sprang the images unfolding beneath her dusty eyelids. Watching now, I realized it wasn't a dream that he skillfully weaved together for her through the magic but a memory; for there in the dust was Elsa and Anna, who carefully sculpted a man out of the snow that had fallen around them.

Their rosy cheeks were flushed and their bright eyes practially disappearing in the grins that devoured their youthful faces. It was the happiest I'd so far witnessed upon her face. But that could sadly never exist again; for I was by no comparison a suitable substitute for her sister. The unique bond that mortals shared through the blood in their veins was unlike any other; you were suddenly richer than any King or Queen bedecked in all the jewels in all the land and luckier than any leprechaun dancing over the rainbow when you were together.

I suppose you could say I was envious of what they shared, (and, if I was being honest, you'd be right). But the truth was that I'd never known a love like that - when you loved comepletely and unconditionally and not in spite of their flaws but _because _of their flaws - and I proabably never would. Because that was the side effect of being cursed with timelessness; everyone's clock eventually ran out of years to count but your own.

I shook my head, refusing to think such bitter thoughts as these for the moment while I drew the covers, which had been brushed aside as she stirred, around her neck and lay my lips against her forehead where I was sure the cold, dead kiss of winter would forever remain engraved on her pale skin before returning to the window, upon which I painted a snowman from the end of my staff just because I knew she would like it.

He was perhaps a little wobbly around the edges and even slightly deformed but he was a snowman all the same and no matter how mishapen his body or crooked his little stick arms or bent his nose nothing could ever alter that.

Into the distant skies I gazed where the clouds rolled in, but before they could envelope the moonlight from my view I smiled up at him because I had a distinct feeling that he had intended for Elsa and me to meet. Whether it was by chance or fate, our paths were destined to cross and it was he whom I had to thank for it - for granting me someone, even if it was only one mortal, with the sight of belief.

_Thank you_.


	10. Chapter 9: A Winter's Promise

9

A Winter's Promise

Jack

The days washed away into weeks and weeks into months, yet the time never felt nearly long enough. It was every waking moment I spent by her side when either she wasn't diverted by the demands of her lessons or I the responsibilities of bringing winter to the world. We spent the time sparingly by pelting one another with snowballs and drawing angels in the snow, (she refused to build snowmen for reasons I didn't ask but had a distinct hunch about), and she even accepted the daunting challenge of teaching me to read. But I could never quite conquer the art of language. For one thing why were there three ways of spelling two? And if letters were silent in a word why were they even there at all?

I could tell that she didn't want to see me quit but reading and spelling and writing were skills I just couldn't wrap my head around. I was an immortal spirit acting as the embodiment of winter who had the power to manipulate and manifest ice and snow and frost at will but couldn't understand why 'why' contained an 'H' if it didn't even make a sound.

Nevertheless I relished the time we shared. She taught me how to laugh and smile, even how to cry and be afraid - emotions I'd never experienced as the ghost I had been. But I felt them now and somehow, no matter the number of years I'd lived, I realized I never truly knew what it was to be alive until then. And I couldn't go back, not when I'd stepped so far forward. Besides, where would I be and what messes would I be making without her to keep me grounded? She was the firm ground I stood on, and it was with her that I was able to steadily balance as I told her something I'd never spoken of until that night.

"Darkness... that was the first thing I remembered," My voice was almost faint to my ears as I relayed the haunting experience of awakening amidst an abyss of nothing but darkness without the vaguest recollection of either who I was or how I came to be there to the curious and sympathetic eight-year-old audience of Princess Elsa.

"It was dark and I was cold,"

Her intrigued round eyes gleamed brightly at me in the darkness and I shuddered not from the cold blue they were painted but from the memories of that terrifying night that seemed to resurrect themselves when spoken out loud.

"What happened next?" She'd hardly blinked since asking me where I was from, and it wasn't that it terrified me but that it fascinated me; that a mortal so young was already so insightful and inquisitive beyond her years, which were so limited already that was unbearable to think that there was so much knowledge out there for her to consume yet so little time to digest it.

The corner of my mouth turned up almost instantly when I vaguely became aware that she'd bent forward on her knees in the grip of anticipation.

"Well Princess, that night was not only the first time I lay eyes on the world but the moon as well."

"And what did you think of it?"

The words were on my lips, waiting to be spoken, but hesition dripped thickly from my tongue. What had I thought of his first impression?

"No words came to mind but of how stunning its radiance was against the dim sky. And I could only imagine how small and charming the world must have looked from up there." I absentmindedly pondered, even almost forgetting her presence for a moment. "But that admiration eventually turned to resentment."

"Why is that?" She said, a frown creasing her brow as she took a moment to adjust the position of the miniture ice sculpture that served as her queen on the board.

I raked a hand through my hair as I took her question into consideration before offering a careful answer. "Well, since that day he hasn't uttered another word to me. I was given only my name, which doesn't seem to be of much use if I have no memory of who I am." My head hung low between my shoulders when I couldn't make myself face her anymore and my voice almost too quiet to hear by the end. "I don't even have a birthday."

She draped her hand over mine then and her palm just barely that back of it, but her touch was just as soft and as gentle as it looked, and when her fingers interlaced with mine it reminded me for neither the first nor the last time why I'd yearned for so long to be seen through another's eyes.

"How how about December twenty-first?"

I quirked a crooked brow at her in response, rather intrigued by her question, and noticed how she bit her lip and averted her eyes when she realized she caught my attention.

"-for your birthday I mean. It's the winter solistice after all, and you're Jack Frost so it's only fitting." Her round eyes glanced up at mine and only seemed to get bigger each time I looked at them.

"December twenty-first it is then." I said through curved lips as I maneuvered my bishop to intercept the path of her rook - a terrible lack of judgement on my part because she immediately noticed the path I'd created for her pawn to corner my king.

"Checkmate." She proudly declared as she commited her final advance.

"Well played your Highness." I congratulated her, even offering a humble gesture of salutation.

I could see behind the hand she pressed against her mouth that she tried, (but failed), to stifle the laughter that ensued like the young lady she was supposed to be. But she wasn't a lady; she was a child in dire need of fun. This wasn't how it was supposed to be. It was all wrong. All terribly, terribly wrong. She wasn't supposed to hide behind walls and closed doors - it isn't how any childhood should be lived. She was supposed to seek laughter and silliness; because children were built for dirtyting their hands - what else were they good for if not to make a mess anyway? And plenty of messes she would make and even more would she clean up, I'd make sure of it.

Our laughter was quickly reduced to silence when a knock came at the door and a voice soon followed it.

"Princess? Princess who are you talking to in there?"

I was immediately struck with relief when I realized it was only Gerda, but Elsa was aware of everything from our suspended breath to the stillness of the room to the faint shadows of Gerda's feet cast beneath the door. She even gestured with a fingertip pressed against her pursed lips for me to remain quiet while she responded to the maid.

"No one Gerda, I'm only playing."

Neither one of us was able to catch our breath until we heard her foosteps disappear down the corridor and walk out of earshot. But even then Elsa couldn't so easily recover. And I couldn't help but feel that she'd half been hoping that it had either been her parents' or Anna's knuckles tapping against her door. Because, however much it may have hurt her, no amount of pain could take away her desire to be held in the safety of her parents' loving arms or to participate in the amusing task of building men in the snow with her sister.

It was sometime time before she recovered from the whiplash of Gerda's visit, but I was eventually able to rouse her enough to assist her from our spot on the floor to the seat at her window. I even managed to persuade her into at least grazing her dinner, of which she offered me a few bites in return, when it was brought to her doorstep. Although I'd never found it essential for me to eat, I had sampled mortal food on occassion before. But nothing quite compared to the warm fluffiness of a _Panne__kak _and its dribbly apricot filling.

After watching me devour the remnants of her meal, we amused ourselves by counting the number of stars we saw sail by against the twilight. We were tied for seven and the chances of retrieving another word from her lips seemed slim judging by the absence of her mind and distance in her eyes when she suddenly spoke for the first time since Gerda checked in.

"Will you be my guardian Jack?" She asked, peering up at me with those wide, round blue eyes of hers. People always said blue eyes resembled the ocean, but hers were bluer than the ocean. If anything, they resembled the sky; because, just like the sky, there was no limit to them - they were endless.

" Always Elsa. I promise."


	11. Chapter 10: Dancing With The Wind

10

Dancing With The Wind

Elsa

"One, two, three. One, two, three - eyes foward - and one, two, three. One, two, three." Freya - my governess - firmly instructed of me when next I glanced at my feet. I looked away from the floor and to the emptiness ahead as I clumsily waltzed to the music that wasn't playing in the vacant ballroom.

"One, two, three. One, two, three - mind your posture!" She then dug the end of her staff rather aggressively into my lower back, which twisted a grimace into my features but almost immediately resulted in my straightening my back. "One, two, three. One, two, three - stop, stop, stop!"

My hands dropped to my sides as did my eyes to the floor almost instantly. You see, the thing about Freya was that she had a habit of unnecessarily repeating herself and I hadn't yet determined if she did so to be heard so much as to hear herself talk. Her heels clicked against the floorboards when she took the two steps she needed to square my shoulders and lift my chin.

"With all due respect your Highness, we've been practicing these steps for quite awhile now. So I would hope that all our deserving effort has resulted in at least a little progress from you." Her words were like nails against a chalkboard and I could tell by the venom poisoning her tone that she was just barely enduring. However, it was something I just couldn't blame her for. In fact, I rather admired her display of restraint - because, even I wouldn't have the patience to tolerate me.

"I hope so too." I said, (more to myself than to her), as I adopted position once more. Lessons were more fun with Anna around to make me laugh whenever I forgot to...

Taking the steps on at a time, I resisted the urge to watch my feet while they moved. But gradually did my confidence rise when I counted beneath my breath along with Freya without having to think of the numbers. That is, until the lesson was interrupted by the bitter gust of wind that burst in from the window.

Its shutters flapped noisily against the frame but weren't quite loud enough to overwhelm the stomp Freya walked with in her step when she hobbled her plump little body out the room to fetch the nearest hallboy on duty to come and mend the damaged hinges.

It seemed a a breath I hadn't known I was holding fled my lips the moment she slipped out the door and suddenly the room felt bigger than it had a moment ago - almost as if there was more room to breathe when no one else was around to occupy it. I sat down when my head became too light to handle with all this extra air to breathe, whereupon I removed my shoes and massaged the welts I already felt beneath my stockings.

I brushed the hair from my face when it fluttered in the wind that was still drifting in and had no problem meddling in the affairs of others when it wished. It cared not if it were a nuisance, especially in the eyes of Freya who believed it to be only a minor fluctuation in the weather. But I knew better, and it was by no accident that this wind, which so mercilessly blew against the window until it had yielded to its strength, made its way into this particular room at this particular time.

"Alright Jack, you can come out now. She's gone," for awhile he left me listening to my voice resonate off the bare walls around me (even when I knew he was there - even when _he _knew I knew he was there) until his boyish laughter betrayed him.

"And that, folks, is how you make an entrance," he said, bowing at the waist as he floated down from the ceiling.

"Bravo!" I applauded. "However do you do it?"

"Ah, ah,ah, dear child," he chided with a swish of his finger. "-a magician never reveals his secrets."

"Then I confess them very enticing secrets and the stunt a remarkable one but not one you will be pulling again."

"Aw don't be such a spoilsport Elsa," he said with a lopsided grin and an even more crooked brow, both of which fit so perfectly upon his face that it was practically adorable.

"I mean it Jack, you can't just swoop in and interfere with my lessons whenever you please."

"But I saved you didn't I? And even earned you a decent laugh from the sight of Freya's immense irritation,"

What I didn't tell him was that I didn't need his assistance to test Freya's limited patience, but, rather, that is was no laughing matter.

"If you're suggesting that the sight of her hobbling out the room in a cloud of fumes so thick it was nearly visible wasn't funny, then I'll have to teach you a thing or two about a decent sense of humor my Princess." He so cheekily remarked, which left me at a loss for a retort equally as snarky as I endeavored to gnaw away the grin threatening to curl in my lips.

But he saw it. He saw it before it even unfurled in the corners of my mouth, and, with a little wheedling from the almost impish wiggle in his crooked brow, did it break free upon my face. And for awhile we laughed together like two little school children snickering in a broom cupboard.

When we'd laughed our sides sore, he offered me his hand with a bow. "May I have the pleasure of this dance Milady." He asked when I flashed him a sidewards glance, which only made me laugh. That is, until I realized he was serious.

"Jack..." I responded, holding my hands in one another as if they might escape if I didn't hold onto them tight enough. "There's no music."

"Ah, who needs music?" He said, pulling me nearer to him with the crook of his staff hooked around my waist as if I was the coin wasted on a wish among many that he didn't want to slip from his grasp.

"I can't," I said, blushing slightly when I realized my hands were against his chest and it was there that I felt his heart beat just underneath his skin. It was fast and unlike anything I'd ever felt before, as if it was alive inside him and could swallow me whole if I wanted it to - and I did. I really, really did. "That is, my feet hurt too much from my lessons."

A wicked smile curled in the corner of his lips on one side of his face, as if he was smiling with half his body - and it was one that, even after these ten years of knowing him, I didn't think I'd ever get used to seeing without melting on the inside. "I can fix that." He said, and never before had I heard him sound so sure of his words.

He beckoned to the window, through which a gentle wind drifted in and swept us up when it swirled about the room. Upon the wind we danced like the little dolls in a music box to music that wasn't playing and to an audience that wasn't watching - and even if they were, even if the whole world was watching us now, they wouldn't know where to look; for we were hiding all too well.

It didn't surprise me in the least that he knew how to dance, (he always had a trick or two up his sleeves), but that his body seemed to read mine with every movement. And I trusted him, not with every step, but with every stumble: because dancing was never about staying on your feet, but learning to get back up after the fall.


	12. Chapter 11: These Broken Wings

11

These Broken Wings

Elsa

I wasn't aware of Gerda's presence until she'd lain a hand on my shoulder. So deeply had I been engrossed in the novel I leafed through that I was startled by her touch, which resulted in my accidentally freezing the bench I sat on. However, she made no noticeable attempt to recover the space between us, (she never did).

Unlike many of the other employees of the royal house, she wasn't afraid to get too close. Of course, I realized long ago that she had probably grown used to being around me since she had been my nanny, (and a devoted one at that). But even this knowledge failed to either console me more or faze me any less... In fact, it only worried me _more._Because it was dark where my demons hid, and that was a place I didn't want anyone else to get too close too.

"Forgive me your Highness," she said, stooping to retrieve the discarded book from the floor. "I didn't mean to startle you."

I smiled weakly at her and reached out to take the book when I realized something was missing... something was awfully wrong.

_My gloves. Where are they?_

I glanced frantically around for them; rifling amongst the cushions I reclined against and peering underneath the bench, but not a trace could be found of them and already I could feel the ice breaking through the surface.

_Conceal, don't feel. Conceal, don't feel._

However, the mantra didn't appear to help and only seemed to tighten the knot threading itself into the pit of my stomach. I could hear Gerda politely clear her throat over my thoughts and I turned back around, at which a brief pause ensued as I waited for her to continue before realizing she found the gloves before I did and there they neatly lay in her open palm

She didn't even attempt to hand them to me and, instead, placed them on the bench, (she knew very well by now that I preferred to avoid any and all forms of physical contact as much as possible). Hastily, I swiped them from the bench and slipped them carefully on; vowing never to remove them again.

"No harm done, I'm perfectly alright." I responded to her earlier comment as soon I regained my composure - something I, unfortunately, wasn't as talented at as my mother.

"That is, her Majesty has sent me to fetch you," she informed me. "I was to say that she and the King will be departing shortly and await your presence in the foyer."

"Is it time already?" I asked and already did I feel the butterflies fluttering in my chest.

"I'm afraid so my Lady. So if you wouldn't mind following me, we'll go in search of them." She dipped into a brief curtsy and escorted me from the portrait room to the foyer where their luggage was already arranged and being loaded onto their awaiting ship.

"Your Lord and Ladyship," Gerda said with a bow when they entered the room. "I wish you a safe and pleasant journey."

"That's kind of you Gerda," Mother said, carrying such elegance in her stride that it was hard not to envy her the moment she stepped foot from the staircase. "But you'll have to promise to spare some time for yourself while we're away."

"That includes you as well Kai." Father said with an arc in his thick brow.

"You know us Milord; we never leave anything to chance." Kai politely replied as he assisted Father with his coat.

"No indeed. However, it never hurts to indulge oneself."

"Of course Milord." They complied in unison as they proceeded to remove the last of the cases, while I said my farewells.

"Do you have to go?" I asked with a curtsy that was without grace.

"You'll be fine Elsa," He sounded confident but none too sure and that was something I couldn't so easily trust. "Just remember: conceal it-"

"Don't feel it."

"Don't let it show." He said, and I was suddenly standing in the body of my eight-year-old self from when he told me those exact words ten years ago - only this time, he didn't hold my hand through it all as he hadn't done so for a long time...

Mother lifted my chin so that my solem eyes met the sincerity in hers and I suddenly was reminded of where I got the blue in mine from, which only reminded me of how cruel irony could be - that I could share many similarities with my mother in all the smallest possible ways but that I could still be so different from her in even bigger ones.

"See you in two weeks." She said, making a promise that would later haunt me for many years to come. As she kissed the top of my head - just where my hairline started - she passed a parcel from her hand into mine. "I love you my little Snowflake." She whispered before walking for what would be the last time through that door. And little had I known then that it would be the last time I was reminded of all that I did and didn't share with my mother.

I watched from the window only long enough to witness their ship set sail for the salty seas that lay between them and their destination, and once its mighty masts had disappeared in a blaze of sunlight upon the horizon did I undo the wrappings at last. From underneath the delicate purple tissue, I removed a beautifully crafted snowglobe and shook it not once or twice but three times, watching the snowflakes swirl around the miniature snowman inside - who looked far too much like a certain man Anna and I had once built out of snow many years ago.

I carefully wound the knob at the bottom and soon the melody of my childhood lullaby began to play from it. The sound of my mother's sweet voice filled my ears and in them she sang until the song's end, leaving a certain snowman grinning broadly back at me when the blizzard had cleared inside.

I thought of all the times we had built him before and all the times we wouldn't get to again and how I hankered for the innocence of our childhood whenever I looked at him, which was when the ice bled through my gloves and onto the globe.

From my palm it fell to the floor with a thud and from it I fled to the safety of my room without another glance, which was why I missed the eyes that were bluer than bluer and hair that was whiter than snow and face that was fairer than youth itself in the window.

I slipped past the servants and behind the sanctuary of my closed door, against which I sank to my knees and just barely had the tears begun to fall when there was a knock.

"Elsa?"

My body ran deadly cold at the sound of her voice - a voice I hadn't heard in years and barely recognized after all the time that stood between us - as it usually did whenever I heard it.

"It's Anna," her words were heavy and thick and fell like a weight in my chest. I may not have been able to recall the sound of her voice when she spoke out loud, but I was positive that I'd never heard her ever having sounded so unsure of her choice of words before. "Is everything alright? Some of the servants mentioned you appeared a bit distressed so I just wanted to check on you."

Nobody had ever wanted to check on me. They did once before. But hadn't since...

"Is it because Mother and Father have left? If so, it's only for two weeks. They'll be back before you know it!" For a moment she sounded exactly how I remembered the voice of her five-year-old self and it was a memory that drew a smile through my tears. That is, until she said what she did next in the voice of her fifteen-year-old self that I didn't recognize but wished so much to meet.

"But if you want to talk about it - wait, do you want to talk about it? Anyway, I'm here if you do."

Did I want to talk about it? There were so many things I wanted to say to her - from the agony of our predetermined separation to the misery of growing up and growing apart to the depth of my guilt and how deeply the scars ran. If she knew how much I wanted to say to her, she'd run away. No. There was nothing I had to say to her. At least nothing anyone would be listening to. Besides, it was better this way - better if there was no place for me in her life and no room for her in mine.

"Do you want to, maybe, build a-... No, perhaps not. I'll just go now then."

I rested my head against the door and listened for the sound of her footsteps walking in the opposite direction - as they had done so for a long time now - long after they were too far away to hear anymore. But even longer passed before I was able to unfurl my fists without the fear of accidentally painting my bedroom walls.

Wasn't it funny how, no matter what I did to shut people out, they just kept trying to break back in? And I would have been laughing... I would still have been laughing if it didn't hurt so much to shut them out - to shut them all out, every last one of them.

It was hard when she knocked everyday... But it was even worse when she stopped - and hearing her on the other side of my bedroom door today was like standing on two differents sides of the same universe from each other. But, no matter how hard she tried to reach me, the legions of galaxies suspended between us was just too great a distance to cross and one that I dared not even consider crossing - because it was better this way, not for myself so much as her; she was safer this way. Besides, she'd have had to outgrown me by now... Yet, even as I told myself this, I knew that if she had, she wouldn't have still been knocking from the other side of that door after all these years.

Gerda used to say when we were first separated that a woman without her sister was like a bird without its wings. So, rather than fly with Anna, I fell by myself - because, to be without wings or feathers, was to be without the luxury of freedom. But if the cost of my wings was the price of her safety, then I would happily pay it; for her I would give up my universe and everything in it.


	13. Chapter 12: Spread Your Wings

12

Spread Your Wings

Jack

She was already gone when I'd cracked the window open and climbed through it. I stepped into the foyer, about to dash after her when I realized the carpet at my feet was damp - and not from the frost that was constantly clinging to my clothes.

In between my toes lay shards of broken glass from the snowglobe she'd left behind, and I didn'thave to glance twice at the little snowman inside its shattered dome to guess what about it had upset her so much.

Like a flash, I flew out the open window to her chambers - knowing her all too well that giving the door a try would be fruitless no matter how many times I knocked. No. I knew that the only way in for me was out, and that the window was the only entrance to that room she never locked.

I pried at the doors, which yielded with a creak, and allowed frostbitten air to drift in as I called her name before I'd even fully entered the room.

"Elsa?"

"Jack," she gasped, rather breathily, while retrieving a handkerchief from her nightable and wiping at what I immediately recognized to be her tear-stained cheeks with it. "You're back."

"You sound surprised." I said, pretending not to have noticed that she'd been crying again - although the edge in her voice was hard not to acknowledge, which didn't sound surprised to see me again so much as that I'd even bothered showing up at all.

"Well, when I hadn't heard anything... I wasn't sure if you could spare the time this winter." She said, furling the handkerchief in her fists where she thought I couldn't see it.

Her words struck me right where she didn't know it could hurt - in the very pit of my ice-cold heart; right where I always felt her (because everything to do with Elsa happened in my chest). And it was only then that I realized just how badly it hurt to learn that, even after all these years, she still didn't trust me enough to come back to her.

Still, I didn't let the affect they had on me give me away when I sat perhaps what was a little too closely beside her on the bed - because almost immediately did the comfort seem to disolve from the room as easily as a breath could be stolen from the air, especially when I reached for her hand; but I couldn't seem to help myself anymore than my fingers could as they busied themselves by tracing the lines drawn in her palm.

Her skin was neither soft nor warm, but clammy and cool in my hands. But it was all hers, and all wonderful. And it was in those few blissful moments of physical contact that I realized I could never grow bored or tired of touching her this way: because touching her was like touching skin that was so much more than just body armor - if that made any sense at all.

"I can always spare the time Elsa," I said, closely watching the color in her eyes shift from blue to grey. "especially for you."

"Jack..." she carefully spoke as if she was afraid of saying my name wrong.

"What? What is it? What have I done?" I asked, my brows knit with concern as the blue swimming in my eyes endeavored to catch the ice freezing in hers (not that they'd ever been able to meet to begin with).

Biting her lip, she shook her head and replaced the gloves on her hands when my grip had loosened just enough for her to slip away.

"Nothing, I just didn't think you were fond enough of me to have delayed the change of seasons halfway across the world."

My brow was now arching for a whole new reason when I caught a glimpse of the smile hinting at the corner of her lips. "Then you must not know me as well as you think you do, your Highness."

"I think I know as much as I need to, mind you."

I laughed and it seemed to broaden her fragile smile, which made me realize that she probably didn't remember when the last time she'd made someone laugh was; and it gladdened me to know that it was I who reminded her of what that felt like.

My fingers threaded themselves into the complex but attractive hairstyle she was sporting in her platinum locks, which was braided and twisted in more ways than I could count and was contrived by none other than the capable hands of Gerda earlier this morning.

The gesture caused her still-damp cheeks to noticeably flush with what I dared to hope was zest rather than timidity, and only deepened more when I said, "And you, are you fond of me?"

"Don't even deign to flatter yourself sir." Her tone was playful but her hands seemed to tell a whole other story as they gently unwound mine from her hair.

"Sounds like a yes to me."

"Well, perhaps I'm fond enough of you to have wished for an early winter this year." Her bright eyes looked anywhere but at me in the waning daylight, almost like a little kid who was guilty of taking as much candy as her tiny hands could grasp off the shelf of the candy store.

"And an early winter you shall have." I said, painting patterns of frost from between my toes onto the polished floor when I rose to my feet and pulled her with me towards the open window.

"Jack," my name was whispery against her swollen lips, which were as fragile as I'd ever seen them that I thought they'd crumble everytime they quivered. But the truth was that they'd been quivering like that for just as long and as well they'd been able to crack a smile. And when they quivered, it wasn't that they were just about able to hold it together but that they were just barely able to keep from falling apart. "where are we going?"

A gentle smile reached from my lips to my eyes, one that was with sincerity and without humor. One that was made especially for her, just like the rest of them were.

"That's for me to know and for you to find out."

The spark that had once flickered in her youthful eyes ignited at my words but extinguished just as quickly. "Oh, Jack, I don't know... suppose someone should come and look in on me while we're gone."

"Then we'll have to be back before then, won't we?" An impish grin wriggled its way onto my lips (because she always knew just how to bring them out).

She was hesitant, you could see it in her wandering glance and fidgeting hands. Yet it was clear to see that she was at least slightly tempted to relent, almost like the young child she was once-upom-a-time, who just itched to jump at the earliest opportunity for a little bit of fun.

But she wasn't a child anymore, which was something I constantly had to remind myself of at the time. But a child she once had been, which was what she needed to be reminded of before she grew up too fast. So tonight was for her. The sun sank and the moon rose for her. Tonight was for all those winters that fell without her and all those days that began while hers were still ending and for all the times the world shut her out while she shut herself in. Tonight, my entire universe orbited around her just as it had for the last ten years, only this time, she would be spinning with me.

"Come on, Elsa, don't you trust me?"

I sobered up a little while asking this, because I needed her to remember how serious I was when next I spoke these words to her.

"What?" The doubt was as heavy in her eyes as it was in her voice, almost as if she didn't trust me enough not to say the words wrong.

I sucked in a breath through my mouth and slowly released it without even the slightest tremble through my nose (because I trusted her enough not to doubt me of my word). And when had I ever been wrong?

"Do you trust me?"

She stared at my outstretched palm for what felt like the longest minute of my life (which was saying a lot considering the fact that I'd lived so many of them already) while pondering whether to go or stay. But it seemed her hand made the decision for her as all five of her fingers slowly filled the spaces between mine.

I felt the grin in my lips before it was even on my face (because I just couldn't seem to help myself), and had to refrain from letting it show just in case the mere sight of it could change her mind before we'd even reached the window.

The wind was already in my hair when we stepped out into the growing night, and it was just as cool and as crisp as I'd left it. I pulled her up onto the sill with me and anchored her with an arm around her waist by my side, not because I didn't trust her enough not to stay but because I trusted her too much to leave me standing by myself. And I wasn't about to let her get away that easily, not when she'd already come this far.

"Ready?"

Her breath shook on the way in and shuddered on the way out, which wasn't exactly an answer but not quite a no either. So I took it as a yes by beckoning to the passing wind, which swept us up as gently as a baby's breath. Her breath was stolen from her lips as we were lifted into the air; but it was out of neither fear nor the cold so much as relief as we abandoned the earth and all her worries on it far below us.

Higher and higher we ascended upon the bosom of the cool evening air as dusk slowly made its way into the darkening sky. I veered this way and that, pulling her along with me by the hand much like a little boy leading a little girl down the hidden garden path that spoke of secrets only he knew the answers to; but tonight, all would be revealed. Tonight, the world would tell her every last one of its secrets.

I snuck a glance at her face, which you would think would be plastered with freight from this height, but was deliciously awestruck in the moonlight by what the world looked like through opened eyes.

"Enjoying the view?" I asked with a quirk in my brow, my voice just barely grazing the wind's howls.

"Exceedingly!" A smile was in her lips and the sound of it in her voice when her cheeks quickly reddened and she bit her lip before she could say too much.

I flashed her the wickedest of grins saying, "Oh, you haven't seen anything yet!"

I steered us over the village, which spanned out from below and glowed like little fireflies in the dark, and toward it we flew with the wind in our ears.

Steadily, we lowered to the cobbled streets, where she stumbled only once with my grip tight around her arm until I was sure she'd regained her balance enough to stand by herself.

"It's odd to think about." She reflected whilst regarding what we could see of the townsquare cast in twighlight, which was deserted in all directions and offered only our voices to hear for miles.

"What is?" I asked, cocking my head in the slightest to cath her eyes, which danced with what little lamplight remained from the village.

"This," she said, gesturing with her hand to nothing in particular for emphasis. "that this whole world existed outside my bedroom window all this time and yet I never even knew about it."

"It's smaller than you realize." I told her, because it was the truth; and I long ago swore to myself that I would never speak a false word to her.

"What do you mean?"

"Arendelle," I said, mimicking her gesture for effect. "it's only a small piece of the bigger puzzle."

"And how many of those pieces have you seen?"

My eyes were shining back at her when she asked that, because I liked it better this way - when she spoke as it nobody was listening.

"More than you think," I said, stepping closer because she made it feel like it was safe to. "and I could take you to them someday if you'd like."

"Oh, Jack, that would be-..."

"You would love it Elsa," I told her before she could even consider rejecting the idea. "Seeing sights you've only read about, climbing mountains higher than you could guess, tasting flavors you've never tried before."

"It sounds like you've been quite your ways around." She remarked, trying not to give her obvious jealousy away. But her green envy only made me smile more because it just meant that there was still so much to intoduce her to in life.

She would love Italy; the idea of living in a city on water, it was almost magical. And Paris... I had to show her Paris; the city of lights and love. And Belgium, after which I was sure she wouldn't taste better chocolate than what they could offer. And even Florida, which I thought wasn't fair to exist when it didn't even snow there. And Pennsylvania, where I first awakened... But most of all, I had to show her the Arctic - it was my favorite place in the world.

I still remembered the first time I'd stumbled upon it - how I'd never to my knowledge seen so much snow in one place... it was glorious. And, in spite of my inexistence in the eyes of every living mortal I'd come across, I still couldn't help but feel that it was the one place in the world where I could be alone; where I didn't have to think if I needed to and could just let myself go... I was a lonely spirit and it made the perfect lonely destination... I could only hope that she would need it as much as I did.

"Well, I've had quite a bit of time on my hands," I said with a forlorn smirk, which was twisted felt felt strange to wear on my face. "So? Does her highness think that she could spare some time from her uncooperative schedule for this humble low-life to take her on a continental tour of the world?"

She hummed thoughtfully for a moment, making me wait for her answer just because she could. "It would be difficult, but I think I could write you in."

I stepped closer, grabbing the first silver lock I could reach that had fallen from the hidden pins in her hair and wound it carefully around my finger.

"And this," I softly coaxed, "can you spare the time for this?"

Her cool breath quickened against my flesh when I leaned in as close as I could without daring to graze my body against hers; and, just as her brilliant blue eyes were about to meet mine in the faint lamplight, I crumbled the snowball I hid from behind my back over her flawlessly-styled hair.

"Jack, you sneak!" She gasped in spite of her giggles when she reached up to thread the snow out from her hair while I made a quick escape.

I dodged behind the fountain, which lay in the center of square and was still alive with the steady stream of water spraying from its spout. Another snowball materialized in my palm when I glanced from around the stone rim to release it only to be bombarded with a flurry of snowballs in return.

There were so many flying in my direction that I couldn't tell from which way they were coming, so I launched myself into the air where I rubbed the remaining snow from my eyes and scoured the darkness below for Elsa.

"Flying is against the rules!" I could hear her call but didn't know in which direction to look.

Smirking, I yelled back, "There's only one rule Princess; and it's that there are no rules!"

In the nick of time, I swerved out of the way of quite the sizeable snowball that was headed right for me only to be struck from behind by another equally as big, which knocked me from the air to the ground.

As soon as I crawled to my knees, I was compelled to leap out of the path of yet another snowball rolling straight for me. I could see her now in the dark, her smile glowing around a mouthful of pearly-whites, only a few feet away as she prepared another snowball; but I was quicker.

With a tap of my staff against the cobbled stones, ice was sent crackling across the ground to where she stood; and, with a stagger and a stumble, she fell to the ground with just barely enough time to catch herself with her hands.

"I'll have to be more careful the next time I challenge you to a snowball fight Princess." I said, offering my hand to her like the gentleman I was.

"That you will, Jack Frost, for it seems you've met your match." Her smile was still fresh in her features; one she'd worn many times before as a child... it was so innocent, so ignorant to the things she didn't know she was capable of creating with her bare hands. Yes, I would have to be careful indeed.

But for now, there was only one thing that smile reminded me of; and it was on my my lips before I could bite it back.

"Elsa, do you want to build a snowman?"


	14. Chapter 13: The Guardian & The Snowflake

**Hey everyone,**

**Thank you for the reviews! 29! I can't believe it! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!  
Seriously, thank you! All of you!**

**So next few chapters are going to be quite emotional, so prepare yourselves!  
Hope you enjoy and would love to hear any feedback guys!**

**-birdywings**

* * *

13

The Guardian &amp; The Snowflake

* * *

Jack

"Do you want to build a snowman?"

Even from across the pond and in the dusky night, I can still see Elsa's figure grow tense at those seven words and I immediately regret them as soon as they pass my lips.  
My heart aches as I watch her draw her hands to her chest, her lips pressed as she turns away, avoiding my gaze.  
I skate over and take her hands in mine, trying to get her to meet my eyes as I cradle her hands as if I hold glass.

"Elsa, I'm sorry. What can I do?" I ask her repeatedly.

But she only waves me off as she tugs at her hands, trying to free them from my grasp. "Nothing, it's fine, really. I just want to go back." She tells me, obviously upset.

"Elsa, look at me," I beg her. "What is wrong?"

She meets my eyes this time, her lip quivering as the tears pool in her eyes but she blinks them away as she tells me a little more firmly, "Nothing. Please Jack, I just want to go back."

Her words cut through me like a knife and when she tugs at her hands, I let her go this time, too stunned to even speak.  
She takes a few steps away from me and my heart feels like it's breaking as I study the pained expression in her features, the breath-taking smile and gleam in her eyes no longer there.

I heave a sigh, my shoulders sagging.  
_No. I won't allow her to forbid herself from having any_ _fun.  
_I shake my head, standing taller as I stride over to her and say sternly, "No."

Her head slowly rotates in my direction, revealing to me her sad blue eyes, like the sky on a rainy day.  
"What?" She barely whispers.

"We're not going back, not yet. We still have one more stop to make before we sink back into reality."

"Jack, I-"

"No." I interject, reaching for her soft and delicate hands. She allows me to take them.

"No." I say again, but softer this time.

"But we should head back." She counters.

My hand weaves around her waist and rests on her lower-back as I draw her into me, her breath on my skin while my other hand emerges from the inches of space between us and cradles her cool cheek in my palm.  
Her eyelids flutter slightly as I feel her body relax against mine.

I draw her face toward mine and rest my forehead against hers, pressing until it hurts as I tell her, "Oh, we'll be going back alright. But we'll be taking a detour."

Her eyes are so close to mine, the blue in them bright and vibrant as if they hold the sky within them. I can feel the smile forming in her lips and she has to bite her lip to contain it.  
"Okay." She whispers against my skin.

And she does not utter another word of protest as I wrap my arm fully around her hip and will the wind to lift us into the air, towards the Man in The Moon, who I swear is smiling down upon us.

* * *

Jack

I fly us up to a mountain covered in a fresh blanket of snow as it overlooks the forest down below, the world lighter with the fresh sheet of snow over it.  
I settle us down on the ground and motion for her to sit next to me at the edge. Her hands twist and tangle themselves with each other at her chest and I can tell she is nervous, but as I take her hand and pull her down with me to the ground, our legs dangling over the cliff, her tension seems to subside somewhat.

"So what-" She begins in a trembling tone but I press a finger to my lips, which are formed in a impossible-to-suppress grin, silencing her.

She obeys and we sit there on the edge of this snow-covered cliff, our feet dangling over the village below, the rooftops sprinkled in a layer of soft snow, the village practically at my fingertips but at the same time, so far away. Its lanterns shining in the night like the stars above.  
I take a deep breath, absorbing the fresh and crisp air as I press my hands into the snow at my sides, trying to keep them from shaking.

_Come on Sandserson. Please make it a good performance tonight._

And then, out of thin air, streams of golden dust weave through the air, intertwining with one another as they enter the little huts below through the windows, bringing dreams to all the children in the village.  
I glance at Elsa and find her staring up at the dreams in awe, her mouth agape as the golden light reflects in her eyes, giving them a twinkle in the darkness.  
I reach for her hand and heave a sigh of relief, my entire body deflating and relaxing with it when she doesn't pull away.

We sit there, just marvelling at the magnificence of the countless golden streams of dust carrying dreams within them.  
I reach a hand out and poke at a stream that flows in front of us and a gasp escapes Elsa's lips as the stream bursts into a golden bird, its wings extended as it gives a hopeful chirp before flying off, soaring through the open air and into a window.

I watch it disappear through the glass when I feel Elsa's hand enclose around mine. I glance back at her as she continues to watch the dreams weave their way through the village below, a smile forming on her soft lips.  
I feel a smile form in my features as I squeeze her hand in return, my palm swallowing her hand as the two become muddled as one.

* * *

Jack

The wind whistles in our ears as it whips at our faces, causing Elsa's hair to fall loose from her braid and flow into my face as we soar over the town in the direction of the castle.  
I inhale deeply, breathing in her scent. I could never get enough of her.

I slow down as we approach the balcony connected to her chambers and take her by the hand as leap from the railing and onto the floor, her cheeks flushed from the cool breeze.  
I smile at her and she averts her eyes to her feet, blushing as she tucks a loose strand of her platinum-blonde hair behind her ear.

"Well princess, it has been a pleasure to accompany you this evening." I say as I balance on the railing and bow before her, trying to appear calm in attempts to soother her nerves.

Even though my eyes face the floor, I can just picture her hands fidgeting at her chest as she bites at her lip.  
"Jack?" She whispers.

I glance up at her. "Yes?"

She doesn't say anything for a moment and so we just stand there, watching each other, the shadows concealing most of our faces but I can just imagine the nervous appearance in her endless blue eyes.

"Just-... Thank you." She finally says.

I smile at her and nod before turning to fly off.

"Wait." She whispers.

I whirl around and look at her expectantly.  
She doesn't say anything more and I become conscious of the rising tension in her as I leap from the railing, landing before her as I clasp her hands in mine and rest my forehead against hers.

"Jack." She whispers, her breath colliding with my skin, sending a cold, electric shock to course through my veins.

"Elsa." I whisper in return as my hand reaches up the narrow space between us and comes to cradle her cheek in my palm as I lift her gaze to meet mine.  
She stares up at me, her eyes catching the light from the moon and reflecting the glow in her endless blue eyes.  
My hands slide around her waist, drawing her into me.

"Elsa." I whisper again, relishing the taste of her name rolling off my tongue.

I reach up and wrap my hand around the nape of her neck before drawing her lips to mine and when they touch; all our surroundings suddenly evaporate leaving only her body pressed up against mine and this one kiss, a kiss so electrifying and intense that it's like kissing for not only the first, but last time as well. A kiss so rare and fragile that it leaves you breathless.

I feel Elsa's hands snake their way up and around my neck, pulling me further into the kiss.  
I smile against her lips as they move together while my arms draw her closer, our foreheads pressing against each other to the point it hurts. But I'm barely conscious of it as the kiss seems to dull everything around me, making this moment all seem like a dream.

It lasts forever, and it is forever that I want to remain here, holding her in my arms, feeling her body against mine and her lips move against mine with our gasps for air being the only thing to fill the silence.  
But unfortunately, my need for air overcomes me and I have to part from her to once again learn how to breathe.

My heart races as I pant for air, feeling Elsa's body tremble against mine as she too tries to recall how to breathe.  
Her body sinks against mine, her head resting against my chest as she listens to the drumming of my heart beating in my chest, the sound echoing throughout the walls of my body.  
I draw her in and plant a kiss on her forehead before resting my chin in her hair.

"Will you be my snowflake Elsa and fall for me?" I whisper into her hair.

I break into a smile, and even though I cannot see her face, I know that she wears a smile on her lips too as she replies with, "Only if you'll be my guardian Jack and catch me."


	15. Chapter 14: Wilting Away

14

Wilting Away

* * *

Elsa

I awake to the first rays of sunlight streaming in through my window, the light reflecting off the glass and shining into my eyes.  
Groaning, I pull the covers over my head and avert my face away from the window, trying to sink back into sleep or to at least remain in bed for as long as possible as I replay the events of my evening with Jack over and over again in my head, the images forever engraved into my memory.

I smile at the image of Jack's face in the glow of the moonlight, his eyes catching the light of the distant stars above us. The feeling of his arms around me, pulling me into him, bringing us together as one. His soft, cool lips moving against mine; barely touching at first, and then pressing against mine urgently all at once as I breathe in his scent, just like Christmas; the scent of pine trees mixed in with cinnamon as I try to remember exactly _how_ to breathe again.

I smile at these thoughts, feeling comforted by them as they just seem to fit together like the pieces to a puzzle or the ingredients to a cake or perhaps the composition of the human body itself; all these different components with different smells, flavors and affects that they would not seem as if they fit together, yet somehow, still manage to.  
With the image of Jack's face embedded in my mind; his piercing blue eyes, his soft, radiant skin and his snowy-white hair, I begin to descend back into the darkness under my eyelids with the comfort of his smile being my last thought until a knock comes at the door.

"Princess Elsa?" Comes my maid, Gerda's muffled voice from the other side, which is usually bright and cheery but seems to carry a certain edginess to it this morning with even a hint of remorse and tension in it.

"Yes?" I call back.

"A letter has come for you from the King and Queen of Corona."

Sighing, I throw my covers off, swing my legs over the side of the bed and slip my feet into my slippers as I push myself up onto my feet, dragging myself over to the door at the opposite end of the room.  
I blow a few loose strands of hair out of my eyes and straighten up before twisting the handle and opening the door to find a sullen-faced Gerda standing before me, her eyes sad and illegible, her facial muscles motionless as she develops a keen interest in the floor beneath her feet, avoiding my gaze as she hands me a single envelope with the crest of Corona indented in the wax holding it closed.

She curtsies and mumbles a "Princess", before departing abruptly, disappearing down the corridor before I even have a chance to utter a "Thank you".  
I stare after her with a muddled and quizzical expression setting on my features but I simply shake it off and click the door closed; once again, shutting out the world beyond my chambers.

Envelope in hand, I prop myself against my vanity stand, my hand leaning on the edge as I tear open the envelope and pull out the single sheet of paper. I unfold the letter to find my aunt's scratchy handwriting in ink dominating the page as it slants across, each letter a different shape and size, and I begin to decipher her curly, winding cursive.

_My Dearest Nieces,_

_It brings me great sorrow to deliver you this tragic news but I feel it is my duty to do so, no matter how much pain it brings me as I write this letter to you.  
__My dearest girls, it seems that your parents ship, which was to carry them here to our land of Corona, was caught in the tragic storm at sea that took place only two nights ago, the night they should have arrived here._

_I am so dreadfully sorry my dear girls, they were both too young, too kind and pure of heart.  
Your father was nothing but kind to me and I will miss both him and my sister dearly._

_I am sincerely sorry that I cannot tell you such tragic news in person, but alas, I am here, while you are there.  
__If you girls should ever require anything, anything at all, please know and do not hesitate to write your uncle and me as we will be here for you should you ever need us._

_You are both in our thoughts.  
Love,_

_Aunt Amelia, Uncle Marcus &amp; Rapunzel_

Everything inside me collapses as the letter falls from my hand and flutters to the floor, seeming to throw me off balance as I too fall to the hardwood flooring at my feet, knocking my vanity table over in the process-sending the countless, tiny bottles to fly through the air and to land with a shattering crash a few inches away; their remnants skidding across the floor, forming a field of shattered glass around me as they catch the sunlight streaming in through the window, illuminating the thousands of tiny jagged pieces like how the ocean sparkles when it reflects the sunlight. But this ocean is sharper, an ocean of glass.

And that is exactly how I feel; like glass.  
About to crack down the middle.  
About to shatter and send my remains to scatter across the floor.  
About to break.  
And I do.  
All the pain I have endured through all these years of isolation comes welling up inside of me and erupting from within all at once as ice spreads across the floor beneath me; slithering up the walls and coating them in a thin layer of frost as a heavy wave of snow descends upon the room, swirling around me like an angry storm in the thick of winter.

I can't breath. I can't think, and all I feel is this cold, hollow emptiness inside me that all the fun in the world will never be able to fill again.

* * *

Jack

I dart through the air, the wind whipping at my face and ruffling my hair as I gain speed, doing a couple of flips as I go, kicking some snow up on the crest of a hill in the process. With an effortless wave of my staff, I conjure up the lump of snow on the hill, leaving a fresh snowman in my wake.  
I smile as I whiz past him, giving him a small salute as he seems to become animated and waves after me, a smile dominating his features.

I laugh and dive straight for the snow-covered ground, only pulling up when I'm an inch away from the earth.  
As I hover over the edge of the forest where wild rose bushes and pine trees grow freely as far as the eyes can see across the vast expanse of the woods, my eyes scan through the greenery, in search of something I may bring to Elsa.  
I settle down on the ground, the snow crunching between my toes. I weave through the branches and shrubbery, my eyes surveying the many unique plants I have within my grasp to choose from.

I catch sight of what I gather to be a Cyclamen flower-one of the few flowers that thrives in the harsh, cold months of winter-its petals glowing a luminous white even in the dim light of evening with a pinkish-red ring going around the exterior of the center, the vibrant colors merging with and progressing into the white as they blend together.  
I smile to myself, knowing Elsa will like it and so I gently pluck the flower from its position in the shrub and cradle it in my palms as I exhale against it, my cool breath freezing the plant instantly as frost coats the thin and delicate petals, miniature icicles hanging off the edges.

I smile, satisfied with my creation as I set off for the Arendelle castle.  
As I approach the mighty kingdom, which is usually buzzing with energy and excitement amongst the townspeople as it is a city built for movement with an aura of mystery to it; I notice the shocking stillness to the city; as if everyone and everything inhabiting it is holding their breath for some anticipated calmactic event, and for the first time since I first arrived in Arendelle, there is only one sound to fill the air, traveling on the wind; _silence._

I ascend into the air, conscious of the haunting eeriness contaminating the kingdom as my heart drums in my ears in a rapid and alarming tune. I take a breath, trying to calm myself as I float through the air, passing a few pedestrians here and there, all dressed in the same grey attire; the men in formal dress pants and neatly pressed shirts while the women wear grey skirts falling around their ankles with these thin grey scarves pulled over their heads, all their faces crestfallen as they tote their children along. They too are dressed in grey and dismal attire with not so much as a smile on their faces as they following their parents without a single syllable of protest.

I fly past them, trying to shake this ghostly feeling as I speed up a little toward the castle and it is only upon entering through the grand double-doors and being greeted by the thin, grey veil being pulled over the portrait of the smiling faces of the King and Queen staring back at me-their faces never to be looked upon again-that it dawns on me; They're gone. The King and Queen of Arendelle are forever lost to the abyss after the battle that we all face against human consciousness each day, leaving behind two still very young daughters with nothing to leave behind as comfort to this horrible tragedy.

I drag myself the rest of the way to Elsa's chambers, knowing that she cannot get through this on her own but I stop short when I see Anna approach her bedroom door and knock softly, trying desperately to reach her sister, who has retreated so deep inside herself that I'm afraid I will never be able to pull her back from the brink again.

I take off before I even realize it, down the corridor, through the entrance and I do not stop until I reach Elsa's balcony.  
I slowly approach the door and give the handle a try but it's frozen shut from the inside. I wipe at the condensation fogging over the glass in the door but it's no use; her powers have already set in motion, the storm brewing and taking her over, pulling her under.  
I have to get to her. I_ need_ to reach her.

I float up to the window and open it a crack but halt when I hear the sound of soft singing coming from within.  
I peer inside the room to find Elsa sitting on the floor at the opposite end, her back pressed up against the door with her head tilted back, her knees pulled up to her chest. Her features are muddled into this twisted and heart-wrenchingly painful expression that I can't bear to even look at, but I do anyway because I have to be brave for her in order to be there for her.

I listen to Anna's soft voice emanating from the other side of the door, separating the two sisters. they're so close with only this thin line between them, yet so far. I distance that can never be covered.  
Anna's every word feel like getting stabbed right in the pit of my heart and I can't even imagine how it must feel for Elsa.  
My beautiful Elsa.  
She cannot and will not get through this alone.  
Things will not go back to the way they once were; when she was like a caged bird locked up inside this room, shut out from the rest of the world with only the Man in The Moon for company and only her constant sobs to fill the silence between them. I will not allow that to happen.

"Do you want to build a snowman?" Anna sings, and it is then that I realize why those words upset Elsa so.

Eventually, Anna's singing ceases, leaving Elsa in the growing silence of her room as the flakes rain down upon her.  
After forever, I take a deep breath before slowly pushing open the window and setting foot in Elsa's room.  
Ice coats every possible surface; the floor, the walls, the ceiling and continues to spread beneath her, covering every inch of the room like I sheet of fear that grows thicker with her every sob.

My eyes trail up ahead to find a wall of ice built around her now, separating her from not only the outside world, but me as well and it breaks my heart at the realization of this; that she can never be the Elsa she once was or ever experience the childhood she was cheated out of or taste the freedom she deserves. That by every passing moment, she retreats deeper inside herself, fading from the world. From me. Her hopes and dreams of freedom slowly dying piece by piece with her spirit.

As I slowly approach the wall of ice composed of her fear, I sigh, willing myself to remain strong for her as I lay a hand on the thick, slick barrier between us as I say to her through the wall, "Elsa, I know this is hard and that it seems like you'll never find the courage to recover from this, but please." I say, sounding desperate, and I suppose I am. Desperate to pull her back from the edge. To show her that there is beauty in her abilities, not destruction. To rescue her from the ocean of fear she drowns in. To save her from herself as she becomes more convinced by each passing moment that she is a monster and nothing more.

"Please Elsa, please. You have to let me help you. Let me in, please. Please. Please..." My voice eventually fades into the over-powering silence of the room, leaving us to drown in it as I lean my back against the cool wall, sliding down against it until I'm seated on the floor with the frozen blossom still cradled in my palms, its petals already wilting away. Just like Elsa's spirit.

"Please." I whisper, but my words are only met with silence as she leaves them hanging in the thick air between us.

* * *

Elsa

"Please Elsa," He begs. "Please."

He continues to talk, trying to reach me, but what he doesn't understand is that I'm already lost. Already submerged in this deep, endless ocean of fear.

I shift on the floor and crawl over to sit against my wall of fear between us, my back against his.

"Please."

His words pierce my heart like a dagger because what he does not understand is that no matter how much I want to reach for him in return; I can't.  
I am lost.  
I am drowned.  
I am empty.  
There is no rescuing me.


	16. Chapter 15: The Walls We Build

**Holy crap guys!**

**42 reviews?! *Drops dead then spontaneously comes back to life* THANK YOU! ALL OF YOU! THANK YOU SO MUCH! God, I don't even know what to say! Just THANK YOU!  
Yeah, sorry about my last chapter, you know, if I made you cry at all... I didn't even think my story would be able to do that. But anyway, sorry!**

**Okay so, unfortunately, it doesn't really get much better from here but I hope you guys like my story nonetheless:) And please continue to review guys! They really motivate me:D**

**Oh, and to freezeon98; believe me, I feel your pain. I think we're all waiting for our Jack Frost to appear in our lives;)**

**Anyway, I hope you all enjoy!  
More to come hopefully soon!  
-birdywings**

* * *

15

The Walls We Build

* * *

Jack

_"Will you be my guardian Jack?" She asks, staring up at me with those big, beady blue eyes of hers. People always say blue eyes resemble the ocean, but hers are bluer than the ocean. If anything, they resemble the sky, because just like the sky, there's no limit to them. They're endless._

_"Always Elsa. I promise."_

* * *

Jack

The memory brings me both joy and sorrow as I smile and flinch at the thought of that night. The night I truly forever interlaced my life with hers. The night I vowed I would change things for her. To set her free from her prison. To protect her.

She was such a different person that night.  
So young with the moonlight catching in her endless blue eyes as it streamed in through the window, giving them a gleam in the dusk of night. Her skin always radiant no matter what time of day it is, and even underneath all that fear and tension, she was so full of dreams and wonder and even in the smallest possible quantity; hope.  
And I suppose in some way, I was different too.

I was younger, more impulsive and even a little reckless at times; when my emotions got the better of me, causing a blizzard to rise from within, leaving destruction in its wake.  
I was foolish too.  
Foolish to believe that I could save Elsa from herself.  
Foolish to believe that I could be the one to pull her back from the brink.  
Foolish to believe that I could be the one to toss the lifebuoy and tow her back to shore.  
Foolish to believe that I was the one The Man in The Moon selected to rescue her.  
But I was wrong. About it all. About everything.

How can you save someone that doesn't wish to be rescued?  
Someone that will yank their hand free from your grasp and return to hanging from the edge of the cliff over the abyss.  
Someone that will toss the buoyant life preserver right back to you, leaving you to stand with an aching heart alone on the shore, watching as they drown somewhere out in the ocean with the waves washing over them, pulling them under with every current.  
The truth is; you can't.

You are only left with two options;

\- You can stand on the shore with the waves tickling at your toes and the seafoam bubbling at your feet, watching as they drown before your eyes.

Or,

\- You can simply just be there for them.

Remain as the ghost who hovers over their shoulder, watching from above as they retreat deeper and further inside themselves. Who only reveals themselves when the victim can no longer pull themselves back from the abyss. Or when the current becomes too strong. When they fall so far they can no longer see the top. When they are losing so much but they aren't yet lost.  
When their need for you is dire and great.

And so this is what I am doing.  
Returning to the ghost I once was; Jack Frost.  
The winter spirit who flies around in plain sight like the chill in the wind that carries winter, bringing fun to all.

Each day is exactly like the last until they eventually fade into each other; each one merging into the next as she falls further within, retreating deeper inside of herself as she fades from the world.  
And from me.  
Losing herself but not yet lost.  
Though, she believes she is, and that she is beyond any and all saving.

She walks through life like a ghost, doing and saying whatever is necessary in order to continue walking around aimlessly.

Three long, heart-wrenchingly painful years we went without so much as a word to each other.  
And it was through these three long years that I hovered over her, guarding her just as I had promised.  
Because a promise is a promise right?  
Something you're supposed to mean when you say it, correct?  
The words that pass over your lips-forever engraved in them-stay with you forever, as both a torment and a reminder of the vow you made to that one person.

Some people don't understand the promises they make when they make them.  
But I understood when I said those two simple yet powerful words to her.  
And I'm not about to allow them to grow empty and meaningless.  
I'm not about to let them slip through my fingers.  
Or her.  
Because words have power, and I do not have any desire at all to discover the extent of their wrath.

I adjust my legs into a more comfortable position as I prop myself up on one of the many bookshelves lining the walls of the grand library.  
My arm rests on my knees as I draw it to my chest while I caress my staff in my other hand with my leg hanging over the edge of the shelf, over the layers upon layers of thousands of pages with stories composed of nothing but scratches on a sheet of paper, held together by a thick, leather bound.  
It is difficult to process that something so small can hold something so grand and extraordinary within its pages.

My eyes skim through the room, searching for her.  
Past the shelves, past the books, past the desks, past Milo, until finally I catch sight of her.  
Her long, platinum-blonde hair no longer tied up in her usual braid as it cascades down her back like a river of snow, but is instead, braided and wrapped around her head before clumping up into a bun at the back.  
The gloves are back on, just as the walls have been rebuilt around her, shutting not only the world out, but me as well.

I watch, my heart twisting me inside and out as Milo places a stack of books on her head, the weight heavy upon her neck as she walks up and down the isles of books with Milo using his staff to correct her posture as he pokes at her back or neck and lifts her chin with the tip when her eyes fall once more to the carpeted floor at her feet.

"Eyes up, Princess Elsa!" Milo commands once more, the frustration difficult to miss in his tone.

I watch, my eyes never leaving her face as she bites down on her lip, fighting the tears in her eyes while trying to keep it all in. Trying to conceal. Trying not to feel. Trying not to allow it to reveal itself.

Milo groans in exasperation as he waves his arms around frantically at Elsa and she steps back a few feet, causing the stack of books to tumble from her head to the floor before Milo calms down somewhat as he removes his glasses from his face and rubs at his temple.

"As queen, Elsa, you are expected to make eye contact with every one of your subjects as well as to-at the very least-hold you head high and in a regal manner." Milo sighs.

Elsa shrinks back into a corner as she draws her hands to her chest, trying to disappear inside herself. "I-I'm sor-" She stammers but is dismissed by her teacher with a simple wave of his hand.

"Elsa, you are twenty-one years old now, you are not a child anymore. I shouldn't have to keep talking to you like one. It is time to grow up and mature," He tells her. "You are to be crowned Queen and ruler of Arendelle in three days. It's time to let go of the past and grow into the ruler your parents intended for you to become. Am I clear?" His hand is on her shoulder-in what I suppose he intends as a gesture of comfort-though honestly, this man is evidently incapable of sympathy.

Elsa's teeth come into contact with her lower lip as she forces herself to meet Milo's gaze. "Crystal."

He nods, and strides over to his desk where he digs up props for the scepter and globus cruciger of Arenedelle, which are the items Elsa will hold during her coronation ceremony.

"Now, you will have to hold these in your hands during the crowning ceremony," Milo tells her as he weaves around the desk. "You will be given the genuine scepter and globus cruciger of Arendelle of course, but I thought we could practice with these props I had fashioned for you. Now, gloves off." He says, clearly pleased with himself by the look of the ridiculous grin plastered to his face.

I roll my eyes while wanting to snap at him, 'Hey, you think your mere accomplishment is anywhere near as extraordinary as hers? She can turn you into a human-popsicle with a simple flick of her wrist if she wants to! Lucky for you though, she is a good enough person to refrain from doing so. Me on the other hand? Not so nice!'

I have to stop myself from hurling a snowball at him in the middle of her lesson with the only thing keeping me from doing so is Elsa, because the last thing she needs right now is to worry about me flying through the streets of the kingdom, hurling snowballs at every person who ever did her wrong.

I notice Elsa's teeth digging into her lips once more as she mumbles, "Um, can we take a break?"

Milo sighs, his shoulders slumping forward as he sets the items down on the desk with a slam before answering with, "Fine, but only five minutes. We have a lot of work to accomplish in less than three days." And with that, the tall, skinny man, who looks like a skeleton wearing skin, storms out of the room and I swear I can see vague traces of steam puffing out of his ears.

I hear a long sigh pass through Elsa's lips as she sinks into a seat, her shoulders slumping against the back of the chair as she fights the tears pooling in her eyes while her hands clutch the sides of the chair, causing frost to seep onto the wood beneath her. She takes a sharp breath as a sob catches in her throat and that is when I decide to swoop in to her aid.

"Elsa." I whisper, my voice smaller than I want it to be. I force my hands to stop trembling at my sides.

She jumps to her feet and whirls around to face me. "Jack?" She gasps, her voice shaking.

I nod at her, smiling with a corner of my mouth. "Hey El."

She draws her hands to her chest, her breaths quickening and I swear the only sound filling the room is the beating of our hearts at an alarming rate as they try to remain in tune with one another.

I take a cautious step towards her, my hands reaching for hers as my mouth opens, but no words spill from it.  
She shakes her head at me as I near her, slowly and microscopically at first and then vigorously and almost frantically.

"Elsa." I try to say, trying to reach her but she only shakes her head and takes a step back before bolting out the door.  
I fly after her.

"Elsa wait!" I call after her.

"No, Jack!"

"Elsa stop!" I descend to the floor directly in front of her, blocking her path like a dam in a river.

"Elsa." I whisper.

She shakes her head again, drawing her hands to her chest. "No, Jack."

I only say her name in return, because at the moment, it's all I can think to say. The only word I am capable of uttering and am capable of thinking as I enjoy the wave of elation that washes over me at the feeling of speaking to her again.

"What are you doing here?" She asks me, and her words hit me like a blade in the pit of my heart.

"I'm here for you." I tell her.

She shakes her head again. "No, I'm fine Jack. You have to go." She says, turning away from me.

"Elsa." I say again, trying to meet her eyes.

And again, she shakes her head. "You have to go." She repeats, but a little softer this time.

I sigh, trying to disguise the hurt in my eyes, like an wounded animal as I tell her, "I'm sorry." Though for what I do not know.

Perhaps for the passing of her parents.  
Or for being cheated out of the childhood she deserved.  
Or for losing her best friend.  
Or for the storm that rages inside of her that I am helpless to help her tame.

Regardless of the reason; I am sorry.  
Sorry that I can't save her like I want to.  
That I can't reach as far as I want to for her.  
That I can't throw as far as I want to.

But I can be there for her.  
And I am.  
I always will.

* * *

**Oh, and just a quick announcement everyone!**

**If you like The Fault in Our Stars, be sure to check out this fanfiction my sister is writing for it as a kind of sequel to the book.  
If you are interested, please search wallflower95 and the story is called 'Their Little Infinity'. Please check it out guys! Trust me, you WILL NOT be disappointed:D**

**Okay, that's all for now:) Please review and I hope you all enjoyed this chapter!**

**-birdywings**


	17. Chapter 16: The Distance Between Us

**Hey everyone!**

**Longest chapter so far, YAY!:D  
Thank you so much for your amazing reviews everyone!**

**Hope you like this chapter! Let me know what you think!;)**

**-birdywings**

* * *

16

The Distance Between Us

* * *

Elsa

_I'm stranded once again in this hollow, empty void, shrouded in darkness as I drown in the silence of the space.  
__I gingerly reach a hand out as I take a cautious step forward into the veil of shadows surrounding me, feeling for something, anything, to guide me through my darkened path ahead. But I'm left to drown in this void of darkness as it encircles me, pulling me under with the waves washing over me, leaving me to sink further into this endless ocean of fear and darkness. _

_My breathing suddenly grows urgent and shallow as the air suddenly becomes thin and I can't seem to deliver any to my lungs.  
Blackness begins to encroach around my field of sight, leaving me to watch the shadows dance across my vision as my chest suddenly grows tight and heavy when something unbearably painful rises from within me, the weight becoming hard to bear._

_I can't get any air.  
The walls are closing in on me again. Containing and caging me like a bird that will never be granted the opportunity to spread its wings.  
The world spins beneath me as the blizzard begins to swirl at my feet, and I blindly stumble through the storm, gasping for air, trying to breathe under this burden.  
I shut my eyes as I try to scream under this weight upon my chest, but no sound passes through my lips and I'm left to stumble and fall while screaming at the top of my lungs with no one present to hear my cries._

_And then, just as soon as it all began; it ends.  
The weight lifts from my chest all at once as the air suddenly begins to come easily to me once more.  
My eyes flick open to discover an unknown source of light filling the space, illuminating everything in its path as it reveals to me the icy ground at my feet.  
I study my blurry and disoriented reflection in the ice as a pair of sharp, piercing blue eyes stare back up at me in return, causing a shiver to run through my body and I have to turn away as I draw my hands to my chest, trying to fold up inside myself, wishing I could just disappear already._

_And then I see him._

_He is coated in a thick layer of ice from head to toe.  
His strong, yet gentle hands are frozen into place as they extend out into the void, as if trying to reach for something. Or someone.  
His once snowy-white and usually tousled hair now sits undisturbed upon the crown of his head.  
His once beautifully mesmerizing and piercing, icy blue eyes now motionless and glassy in the reflection of the light filling the room.  
The one and only person I never thought I would ever harm.  
My beautiful guardian.  
_

_Jack._

_I feel this excruciating blade slice through me as a hollow emptiness fills the spot in my heart where I hold Jack. Like a secret in my heart, just under my rib cage where the life is pumped from and sent to course through my body_

_I trudge over to him, limping somewhat, as if the sight of him like this has crippled me.  
My hand reaches out to caress his face, but I draw it back to my chest immediately as I bite at my lip, biting back the cry of pain and misery that catches in my throat as I reach my hand out to meet his, which is positioned as if it is pressed up against a wall.  
And that is exactly what I feel is between us._

_A thick, invisible and impenetrable wall cutting through our paths, separating us from one another as our hands reach out but are forbidden to ever touch again.  
I stare into his eyes, yearning to once again see the blue in them. To feel his arms around me, pulling me into him, drawing our two bodies together as one. To once more feel that cold, electric shock seep into my skin and flow through my veins._

_I draw my hands to my chest, my teeth digging into my lip as I back away from him before turning away just as my trembling legs succumb to gravity and I sink to my knees. My hands reach for my temple as I press my forehead against the slick, icy surface, causing a numbing pain to shoot through my head and run into my body at the contact._

_I'm sorry. I'm so sorry Jack._

_"What did I tell you Elsa?" _

_That same cold, hollow and icy voice calls to me, seeping into my mind._

_"Embrace the fear."_

_Please don't go.  
Please don't leave me Jack.  
Please._

* * *

Elsa

My eyes flick open to find a sheet of snow hovering above me as I lie there, frozen with fear.  
I slowly push myself upright as I survey the damage from my nightmare around me, the effect resulting to ice-coated walls as it seeps in between the wooden planks in the floor and a veil of snowflakes descending upon the room.

A knock comes at the door and I jump at the sound, my pulse quickening as a mound of ice rises up from the floor in the center of the room.  
"Your Highness?" Gerda's voice calls through the wood that shuts life beyond my chambers out with its purpose being not to keep me safe from the world, but to keep the world safe from me.

"Y-yes?" I call in a weak and trembling voice.

"Princess Rapunzel and Sir Eugene have arrived and await your presence in the dining quaters, along with Princess Anna."

"Al-alright, thank you Gerda. Please inform them that I will be down momentarily." I remain motionless in bed until I hear the sound of her footsteps padding against the floor and fading down the corridor.

I release the breath I was not aware I was holding as I attempt to melt the mound of ice that had formed at the foot of my bed, but it only shatters, sending its remnants to skid across the hardwood flooring.  
I begin to hyperventilate as I wriggle out from under the covers and plant my feet on the floor, trying to remain upright as I try to reach my dressing screen but somehow end up wandering over to my vanity table thanks to my feet, which seem to posses a mind of their own.

I sink down into the chair as I study my reflection.  
My eyes seem to sag at the corners, the weariness revealing within them as they stare back at me with their crestfallen blue, the color seeming to drain from the orbs.  
My face is stricken, the skin ashen, giving it a ghostly appearance even in the morning sunlight.

I unclench my hands and press them against the edge of the table, my fingernails chipping away at the wood as I continue to study myself, looking over every feature as I search my endless eyes, which look so hollow and lost inside themselves that I don't even recognize them anymore.

Who is this girl?  
She is so pale and ghostly that I can almost see right through her, and yet, not see her at all for who she truly is anymore.  
She is a stranger with a face I will never be able to remember. A face that will fade into unreachable memories that will be lost with time.

This girl is not me.  
I no longer know who I am anymore.  
I am a stranger even to myself.  
I have once more become the ghost hiding in plain sight.

* * *

Elsa

_Conceal don't feel. Conceal don't feel.  
__Conceal. Do. Not. Feel._

"Elsa? Are you alright?"

I shake my head slightly, trying to clear my thoughts as I snap to attention and force a smile when I glance at my cousin. "Yes, of course." I say wearily.

Rapunzel nods her head with a smile as she resumes with the conversation occurring over our breakfast.  
I'm seated at the dining table that is much too large for only four people with Rapunzel and her husband Eugene on either side of me while Anna sits across from me at the far end, and I try to avoid her gaze as she stares intently at me, trying to meet my eyes with that little pout and her protruding lower-lip she used to give our parents when she requested anything of them when we were younger.  
Looking at her now, even as a young woman, brings back all the achingly painful memories-both good and bad-from when we were little, and I have to look away.

_Conceal don't feel._

"As I was saying," Rapunzel continues. "It is just simply a pleasure to finally make the acquaintance of you both, and I consider it a privilege to have the honor of inviting you to our annual springtime festival, in which we celebrate the arrival of the season bringing with it growth, fresh beginnings and new life."

I nod along with her voice, trying to focus on hers and Eugene's words. But their voices eventually trail off, drowning into the thick silence wafting between and Anna and me. I soon find myself drifting in and out of the conversation, becoming lost in trying to conceal it all. In trying to contain the storm that brews just beneath my skin.

_Conceal don't feel.  
__Conceal don't feel.  
__Conceal don't feel._

I was unable to locate one of my gloves this morning while dressing, so I had to go without it. And through the whole stroll to the dining quaters, I had to convince myself that all will go well. That I could keep it in. That I could hide it all. That I could conceal and not feel. That I could last until the end of the meal.  
But even as I tell myself my father's words, I can feel the ice beginning to spread from my fingertips and seep into my dress.

I bite my lip and abruptly rise from my chair, practically leaping to my feet and almost knocking the chair over in the process when I become conscious of the three other heads at the table, along with the two of the servants, turning in my direction.  
Five pairs of eyes boring through me and I suddenly feel exposed.  
I give a slight chuckle to let them know that everything is fine, but it comes out as more of a nervous and uncertain laugh, one that one might give when in the face of danger.

"Elsa," Anna says from the other end of the table. "Are you okay?"

"I-uh," I utter as I draw my hands behind my back, trying to hide them in my skirts.

"I'm alright, simply just a little tired," I lie. "Suppose I'll turn in for a few hours."

I don't give any one of them time to reply.  
I simply vanish through the door and make my way down the corridor towards my chambers as I prevent myself from breaking out into a run.  
I force a flimsy smile, wearing that familiar mask of concealment and deceit once again, as I pass by a few servants here and there.  
I'm just a few feet short of my chambers-just a few feet away from the safety of the walls of both my prison and escape-when I feel a sudden pang of longing and loneliness hit me.  
I fear being alone more than anything, but if isolation is the price I have to pay to prevent myself from harming anyone, than I will gladly do it.

I reach for the handle when I suddenly become conscious of a nearby presence, as well as a pair of eyes observing me and I scan the space around me, searching for someone lurking in the shadows.

"I know you're here Jack." I call out to him.

I hear him laugh and the sound is like music; pure and sweet, composed of all these different pitches and notes that shouldn't fit together, but somehow do in this one, pure sound.  
"You always did know when I was near." He replies, descending onto the floor behind me as I turn to face him.

"What are you doing here?" I ask him, my voice smaller than I want it to be.

I tie my hands around my back as I take a few steps away from him while the scenes from last night's nightmare dance across my eyes, and I have to refrain from flinching at the sight.

"For you, of course." He answers with, a smile playing at the corner of his lips.

I shake my head at him and turn away, trying to hide the quiver in my lip as I reply with, "No Jack. You have to leave."

I can only imagine the hurt in his eyes, and it twists my heart into knots just by saying these words.

"Elsa." He whispers as he reaches for my hands, but I pull them away, my fingers slipping through his.

"No Jack," I say, taking a deep, trembling breath. "I appreciate your concern, but I'm afraid I no longer require your protection."

My every word cuts through me like a blade.

"Elsa." He whispers through slightly parted lips, a dazed look in his eyes.

I turn to face him once more, digging my teeth into my lip to hide the quiver in them as I lift my chin to meet his gaze.

"I have a kingdom to run Jack," I tell him. "Citizens to govern, people who are relying on me," My voice begins to shake again and I have to pause to recollect as I will myself to finish the sentence.  
"I will be crowned ruler of this land tomorrow, leaving me no time to run wild having snow ball fights and building snowmen along the streets of the village. I'm not a child anymore Jack, I have duties and responsibilities to this kingdom."

I don't believe it.  
Any of it.  
Not any one of the words that spew from my lips as I stand there with him in the corridor with nothing but my hollow, empty words automatically spilling from my mouth-as if someone else talks through me while I appear in form-to fill the silence between us, creating a distance so great that it would take a lifetime to cover.  
How can you be so close, yet so far?

"I don't need you anymore," I tell him, and my heart shatters like ice, its jagged remains cutting into my interior lining, causing a sharp cry of pain to catch in my throat as I watch the twisted and pained expression take shape in not only his face, but in his entire body as well. His shoulders sag with dread and his hands clench into fists at his sides as he grips his staff, his knuckles turning white while he grits his teeth, biting back his anger.

"But you should go," I look over at him then, waiting and aching for him to protest and oppose this, but he simply remains tense and motionless as he listens to me drone on.  
"There are other kids in the world who need Jack Frost. Who need your magic and fun and mischief." I smile a little as the memories of our fun together over the years flash through my mind. But it quickly falters when I glance back at him.

He leaves my words hanging in the thick air between us as neither of us says anything for a long time, each passing minute just radiating tension.  
I release the breath I hadn't realized I was holding before turning around after sneaking one last glance at him, trying to etch his every feature into my memory. But just like a hug, the memories will fade with time and eventually; will be lost.

"You should go." I whisper softly as I inhale deeply, bracing myself for the indent he will leave behind in my life when he finally leaves.

I take a step forward, distancing myself that much further from him, only to halt in my tracks as he calls to me-already sounding further away,  
"No. There are millions of other children out there, none of which can see me. You were the first Elsa. I can never leave you, and not even for that reason alone, but because you are the first person I ever spoke to. The first person I ever touched. The first person who ever heard me. The first person I now and will ever love,"

My heart melts at that point as it sinks further with guilt and remorse.

"You can ask anything of me and I will never deny any request you make of me, except to leave you,"

My eyelids fall over my eyes like a curtain, and I watch as his face flashes before me, forever to remain under there in the shadows above my eyes, to both haunt and console me in the years to come. As both a memory and a ghost of the past.

"I made you a promise thirteen years ago Elsa," He tells me, his voice soft, like a lullaby, and all I wish for more than anything is to take his arms in mine and wrap them around me, forever linking us together so that we may spend the remainder of our days together as the ghosts we are. So that I may fall asleep cradled in his gentle arms against his soft skin while I breathe in his scent of pine and cinnamon as my lungs settle into the rhythm of sleep with my last sight being of his smile, revealing to me his mouthful of dazzling white teeth, along with his icy blue eyes that I could never grow bored of staring into.

"And I keep my promises."


	18. Chapter 17: Chasing The Sun

17

Chasing The Sun

* * *

Elsa

_Conceal don't feel.  
__Conceal don't feel.  
__Conceal don't feel.  
Conceal. Do. Not. Feel._

The end of this aisle seems to get further rather than closer with every step I take, the end shrinking from my view, and I have to squint my to try to catch a glimpse of the finish line. But it's past my field of vision, and I'm left to trudge down this endless path, all the while blind to my destination.

I take a silent, shaky breath as I lift my gaze toward the long path that lies ahead, trying to relax my hunched shoulders in the process with a room full of eyes staring after me.  
I feel myself shrink back under their gaze as I try to ignore them, to imagine the space around me is vacant and empty, leaving only me and this ceaseless road. But all I can hear is the breathing of the people around me and the pounding of my heart, which beats so violently that I have to refrain from clutching my chest in attempts to bring it to a halt. All I feel are the countless pairs of eyes boring through me, cutting a hole right through me. All I see is the endless red carpet at my feet, its fabric soft beneath my soled flats.

_Conceal don't feel.  
__Conceal don't feel._

I catch Anna's gaze for only a moment, and she offers me an encouraging smile as I climb the little staircase leading onto the platform where the archbishop will conduct my crowning ceremony. A small but genuine smile tugs at the corners of my mouth in return as I reach the end of the road, coming to stand before the archbishop while the singing resumes from the balcony above us, the voices echoing off the walls and traveling on the waves of sound throughout the room but yet, not quite reaching me.

I take another trembling breath, but I this time, I hold it and don't allow it freedom from my lips as I press my wavering hands into my skirts.

_Conceal._

I automatically bend over and allow my eyelids to fall closed over my eyes like a veil as the archbishop places the tiara that had once sat upon my mother's head in my hair.

_Do._

I suck in another breath before standing upright once more, my head bobbing on my neck like a buoy at sea, my mind feeling light, dull and faraway all at once as I reach for the royal scepter and globus cruciger of Arendelle resting on the plush cushion before me.

_Not._

I cringe when the archbishop clears his throat, whispering, "Your Majesty, your gloves."

My teeth dig into my lips as I tug at the sheath for each finger, sliding the gloves off slowly and taking a breath as I set them gently down on the cushion and reach for the items of raglia once more with trembling hands before turning to face the audience gazing upon me.  
My body grows tense as I suck in another breath, my teeth biting at the skin on my lips as the archbishop goes onto recite the ceremonial sermon, his words echoing through my mind but not quite reaching me as I feel the ice ooze from my fingertips and spread onto the orb and scepter.

_Feel._

I don't even wait until he has concluded the oration to slip my gloves back on, once again returning to containing the storm and rebuilding the walls around me.  
A small smile creeps across my face while a wave of relief washes over me as I turn to once again, face my subjects but this time, as a different person; No longer the frightened little girl who had to remain locked within the walls of her chambers for being too dangerous, but as the grown woman who still carries the storm inside, but is prepared to lock it away in order to govern, support and guide her land.

I sigh, a relieved smile tugging at my lips as I think to myself; _Now, if I can just get through the ball...__  
_

* * *

Elsa

It all happened so fast.  
Too fast.  
I don't even remember most of it.  
Everything is a blur in my mind.  
One thought merging into the next, an endless cycle of fear, fear and more fear.

The fear in their eyes; as if staring into the eyes of a monster.

I bite at my lip, banishing the thought from my mind as I keep running, my hands clutching my chest-one still concealed in its glove while the other remains bare.

"Elsa!" Anna's distant voice calls.

I shake my head to myself.  
_No Anna._

I keep running and hardly even pause when I approach the vast expanse of the ocean ahead, the water dark and cloudy in the dusky night, the distant stars reflecting in the ripples.  
I run, my flats tapping on the ice I leave behind with every step.

It's all behind me now.  
I can see the sun rising in the distant horizon, its rays illuminating the distant snowy peaks of the mountains-the beginning of a new day.  
I can taste freedom on the tip of my tongue, the flavor sending an exhilarating sensation through my taste-buds.  
I can smell it in the air, mixed with the salty scent of the sea.  
I can feel it coursing through my veins.

I hate to abandon Anna like this, but it's for the best; at least I have no way of hurting her this way.  
She will grow into the queen I can never be.  
The one who will be able to care for her subjects without the risk and fear of hurting them always gnawing at her.  
Though young, she will manage.  
Mother and Father would be proud.  
It's for the best.

"Elsa!"

Her voice is fading now, the distance growing between us as I run, sprinting across the sea, chasing the sunset on the horizon until I can no longer detect my sister's voice.

And I keep running.

* * *

Jack

I exhale against my palms, my cool breath creating a snowball in my hands and I toss it in the air a couple of times before throwing it at one of the many kids surround me, hitting them directly in the back of the neck and I laugh in spite of myself as I watch them whirl around in alarm, cutting his companions questioning glances here and there.

A smile plays across my lips as I snatch my staff from its position on the soft grass beside me before launching myself toward the dark veil of sky and sending a flurry of snowflakes to tumble through the air toward the group of children that has gathered below, their faces awestruck as they poke at the flakes.  
I plant my feet on the ground, the thin blanket of snow crunching beneath my feet as I create a snowball in my palm and toss it at a child at random to get things going, and in no time at all, the entire atmosphere erupts into laughter and banter as a snowball fight rages on.

I fly this way and that through the cool night air, striking child after child with a smile in my feature and laughter echoing within the walls of my body.  
I settle on a large boulder covered in a thin layer of frost and watch as the battle unfolds before me.

I smile and laugh over and over again at the fun and silliness of it all, realizing that I haven't been this entertained in three long, painful years and I sigh, my smile disappearing with my exhale as I recall the day I had first laid eyes upon her. A day much like this one to be precise, only, the sun had been shining in the early hours of the morning and there had been a second snowfall. Just passed the clearing, beyond the gates of the kingdom and within the walls of the castle where a lonely little girl with striking blue eyes and hair as white as snow sat with only the moon for company.

Exhaling long and sadly, I run a hand through my tousled white hair before rising to my feet, leaving the fun behind me along with all the painful memories.

"Elsa!"

Her name is still so pure and beautiful in my mind, a sound no one can ever dull.

"Elsa!"

There it goes again, rolling through my mind on constant replay as the gears and levers within the walls of my mind shift and grind against each other to play the sound relentlessly, both torturing and bringing me joy.

"Elsa!"

_Wait a minute._  
I whirl around in my tracks, my head snapping in the direction of the call to discover Anna clutching her the skirts of her ball gown in her hands as she runs along the grassy ground.  
I push past the shrubbery and watch the sight from afar as Anna slips on the ice coating the ground beneath her as it spreads across the ocean ahead, freezing it instantly.  
A man rushes to her side and wraps his arms around her protectively as their gazes focus and stare after something in the distance, the figure fading into the darkness, long gone with the shadows of night.  
But I already know who it is that they stare after.

I crouch slightly, gripping my staff in my hand and launch myself into the air after her.  
_I'm coming Elsa. Just hang on._


	19. Chapter 18: The Storm Inside

**Hey everyone!**

**Thanks so much for the reviews, 53! I can't believe it!:D  
Thank you so much everyone! You have no idea how much every single comment means to me!  
**

**Here's chapter 18, more to come soon!  
Hope you all enjoy and try to review if you can guys, they really keep me going!**

**Until next chapter!  
-birdywings**

* * *

18

The Storm Inside

* * *

Elsa

I bolt upright as the sweat trickles down my forehead in a continuous flow, like a river, while my hands clutch my chest, trying to reach my racing heart as it drums in my ears and fills the silence of the room.  
Someone had screamed.  
Then I realize, it was me.  
I had screamed.  
His name.  
_Jack._

I shiver at the echo of his name in my mind, the pure thought sending chills down my spine as I hug my knees to my chest before slowly falling on my side against the mattress, my head cushioned by the pillow as soft as snow and I'm left to lie there motionless while the water drains from my eyes with my sobs drowning out the silence around me, which has become quite deafening over the years.

I thought that fleeing Arendelle would help. That things would be better. That I could once and for all live freely without the constant fear of hurting someone always gnawing at me. I thought that I could rid myself from these haunting nightmares and for once, have a sleepful night. But the nightmares remain and are nothing if not more vivid than ever, and I realize that I will never escape this storm. My vision will always be clouded by the blizzard stirring in my path, blinding me to my destination. I will be constantly thrown and knocked to my knees by the forceful wind.  
I can't escape. But I can save those I love and care for.

And so, I will remain here, on this mountaintop of seclusion, safely within the walls of my ice castle and away from everyone.  
Even Jack.

I push myself off the bed and stride over to the balcony overlooking the snowy peaks of the field of mountains beyond the doors of my chambers as the sun peeks out from in between the slopes of two mountains, its rays casting light upon the world.  
I smile when the light reaches me, feeling refreshed at the slightest lift in my spirits as the sun illuminates my face, the glare reflecting off the icy floor and walls around me.

I rest my hands on the railing and straighten up a little, allowing the rays to shine upon me as my braid falls over my shoulder while my shimmering blue dress flows behind me, riding the morning breeze with its tiny ice incrustations glowing as they catch the light.  
I inhale deeply, enjoying the fresh air as it enters through my nose and travels down to my lungs, making them feel brand new in my body.

Mornings like this one don't come along often.  
When everything is silent and for a moment, the world is at peace with itself and everyone and everything within it.  
When it's all, just for even a moment, still as the sun emerges from somewhere on the horizon, illuminating the world once more.  
It is truly a rare and breathtakingly wonderful experience.

I am pulled from my reverie when I detect the sound of the castle doors creaking open from downstairs and, grasping my skirts in my hands, I walk silent and delicately against the icy floor, holding my head high upon my shoulders as I prepare to greet my unexpected visitor.  
And as I take my leave from my chambers, little do I notice the deep and sinister red the walls are glowing underneath all those layers of ice.

* * *

Jack

I nearly collide with a tree when I catch sight of the grand and luminous castle made entirely of ice sitting atop the peak of the snow-covered mountain ahead, its slick, icy surface catching and reflecting the first rays of morning light descending upon the land.

I dig myself out from the mound of snow I had fallen into by not paying attention to my flight path when approaching this magnificent creation, and I can't help but feel proud of Elsa as I study the structure from the ground.  
The snowflake patterns along the walls and doors intricate, delicate and mesmerizing all at once. Every inch of this castle created by her smooth, small and fragile hands. The craftsmanship is impeccable, and I find myself gaping up at it for quite sometime before I finally gather up the sense and nerve to push open the grand, slick doors.

The exterior does not even compare to what awaits me on the inside.  
Complex and intricate snowflake designs decorate the walls, their patterns weaving, criss-crossing and blending into one another as they snake up the walls.  
A fountain sits in the center of it all, the water spouting from it frozen into place, creating a winding and twisted sculpture sprouting from the top.  
A chandelier hangs high above me with strings of ice dangling from it, the glassy pieces catching the light and illuminating the room.  
It all takes my breath away, and everything around me seems to evaporate when she appears at the top of the staircase, and I feel my lips part slightly in awe at the sight of her.

A vibrant blue dress hugs her figure, its tiny, ice crystal incrustations shimmering and gleaming as they catch the light with her every step. Her hair is once more, tied up in its long braid, like a waterfall of snow cascading down her shoulder. Her bare, delicate hands clutch at her chest as she gazes down upon me, and I feel my heart skip a beat in my chest as I gaze up at her, the blue in her eyes bright and full of life.

"Elsa." I breathe.

* * *

Elsa

"Jack." I breathe, both a little startled and relieved to see him once more.

Neither of us says anything for quite sometime, leaving his name to echo off the walls around us before merging and drowning into the silence consuming the room.  
He gazes up at me, his eyes never leaving mine as they study my every action; the way my braid falls over my shoulder, when I reach up to tuck a loose strand behind my ear or even the way my hands fiddle with each other at my chest, and I feel my cheeks grow warm under his stare as I avert my eyes to the floor before gathering up the courage to call down to him, "What brings you here?" My voice is barely over a whisper.

He shakes his head slightly for a moment, his head bobbing on the loose hinges of his neck before answering without hesitation, "You, as always." And I watch as a smile plays at the corner of his soft lips.

My cheeks grow warm at his words, leaving me speechless as I cannot bring myself to say anything in return, and we once again, sink into silence as he draws circles with his staff against the slick ice at his feet, his gaze still resting on me while I absentmindedly fiddle with the end of my braid, trying to find something to focus my attention on.

"So, this place..." Jack says, his free hand rubbing at the back of his neck before gesturing at the space around us with a flick of his wrist. "It's amazing."  
He catches my eye and smiles with a corner of his mouth, causing the color to return to my cheeks as I will myself to meet his gaze.

"Thank you," I breathe, forcing my hands to remain still at my sides and my heart to beat steadily for once as I say a little louder, "I never knew what I was capable of."

"Many wondrous creations." He says simply.

I glance down at my feet, a smile tugging at my lips before I lift my gaze to meet his again, really staring into his startlingly blue eyes as I give him a slight nod.

"Listen Elsa," He says, his voice growing tense as his smile fades into his pursed lips, his gaze falling to the floor for a moment, and I feel my body tense at his words, preparing for what he'll say next.

"We should go back. Together. You still have a kingdom to rule and people who are relying on you to guide them. You still have Anna. She needs you most of all," He tells me, his eyes meeting mine as he says much more softly, "I need you."

My mouth opens to speak, but no words emerge from within and we're once again plunged into silence, the denseness of it suffocating and claustrophobic even though it is only the two of us present in the room.

"We should go back," He says again, and I get the feeling he senses my fear and doubt as he says, "I'll be there beside you the whole time Elsa, you don't have to do this alone. We can fix this."

He takes hold of the railing and climbs up the long staircase, his staff tapping against each step as he closes the distance between us, the sound echoing throughout the room, filling the eerie silence.

"Do you trust me?" He whispers, his breath visible in the air as he extends his cool hand out to me, in the inches of space remaining between us.

For a moment, my body relaxes, my shoulder sinking back into place as my lips form a small smile when Jack flashes me a reassuring one with the corner of his mouth, and I find my hand reaching out for his before I can stop myself.  
_Maybe things can be mended. Maybe I can still guide and care for the citizens of Arendelle. Maybe I still have a chance to be a sister to Anna. Maybe there is a possibility-even in the smallest possible way-that Jack and I can have a future together. _

These thoughts roll through my mind in a continuous cycle as hope ignites and flickers within me once more, and it is not until my eyes travel up to meet Jack's that the images from my nightmare in which I froze him, flash before my eyes, causing my hand to draw back to my chest as I stumble back away from him.

"Get away, Please!" I gasp, clutching at my chest as I turn away from him and make a dash for my chambers.

I flinch when I hear him sprint after me, appearing and standing in the door frame as he tries to comfort and reassure me, telling me as he reaches out for me, "Elsa, I'm right here. I will always be here for you. We'll fix this together." His voice desperate and pleading, and my heart breaks at the sound of it.

He continues to talk, trying to reach me but not quite reaching me as his voice becomes lost in the muddled thoughts racing through my mind, going faster than my heart can ever beat.  
The world is spinning beneath me, my vision becoming cloudy and Jack is lost from my view as the blizzard swirls and stirs at my feet, cutting me off from my surroundings.  
From Jack.

I notice the deep red slithering up the palace walls as they crack down the center and I feel as if I'm about to shatter.  
Jack's voice has faded, lost to the storm raging around me, swallowing and pulling me under. I feel the weight forming in my chest and I can no longer find the air to breathe.

_Go away.  
__Make it stop.  
__Make it all stop.  
__Get out of here Jack.  
__Get away from this storm.  
__Away from me._

And then, all goes silent and still as the weight is suddenly lifted from my chest-the tension draining from my body-and the air can once again reach my lungs.  
I take several deep breaths, my body trembling as I slowly swivel to face Jack.

Everything inside of me collapses as the color drains from my face, my body growing numb and beyond feeling, and I become convinced that I will never be okay again when I turn around to find Jack sprawled on the floor, his arms and legs spread out against the cool surface with his head propped up against the wall at the opposite end of the room, his body motionless while his staff skids away along the ice.

I gasp for air, trying to keep myself afloat as the waves come crashing over me, the tsunami plunging me further into this veil of darkness while my heart breaks piece by piece in my chest, wrenching me this way and that until I'm no longer one whole, but many broken pieces scattered around the room.  
The space around me evaporates, leaving only me and this storm inside, and, as my eyes fall from Jack's motionless body lying out of my reach to my hands, all I can do is ask myself; _What have I done?_


	20. Chapter 19: Lost & Found

**Hey guys!**

**Sorry this chapter took longer than usual. I really tried to update before the weekend but I just really didn't like what I had written so I rewrote the whole chapter. Plus, summer is unfortunately a pretty busy time of the year for me.  
So unfortunately, I probably won't be able to update as much as I'd love to for the next couple of days, possibly weeks.  
Believe me, if I could spend my whole life on the computer posting chapter after chapter, story after story I would, trust me. But rather unfortunately, I do have to have a life outside of the fanfiction world.**

**Wouldn't it be amazingly awesome if our lives could be like books? Seriously, who wouldn't love being a demigod like Percy Jackson? Or an elf like Legolas? Or meet a guy like Park? Or Augustus?XD  
**

**Anyway, here is chapter 19!  
Hope you all enjoy and let me know your thoughts if you can:)**

**-birdywings**

* * *

19

Lost &amp; Found

* * *

Jack

My eyes flutter open, my vision fuzzy and clouded as I watch the lights and shadows dance before me. My head throbs with pain, and I have to reach up to massage my temple while blinking away the blurriness only to discover Elsa standing in the center of the room, her face pale and drained of all color as she stares down at her trembling hands as if they belong to someone else.

"Elsa." I croak, my throat raw and dry, as if I've been drinking sand.

I lift my hand slightly by my side, trying to reach for her, and that's when I experience the pang of numbing pain shooting up into my arm as well as every other one of my limbs. I cringe at the discomfort and rest my hand once again on the floor, my eyes never leaving Elsa's face, which is a ghostly white, almost making her appear transparent.

I release the breath I was not aware I was holding while watching her, my eyes studying her features for any sort of response or indication that she's still in there. That my beautiful snowflake still remains.

"I'm a monster." She breathes, her eyes hollow with fear.

I experience a newfound kind of pain with her every word; like a thousand knives pricking at my body, leaving me sapped of life and beyond all feeling.  
My mind is blank. I can think. I can't breathe. And all I can hear are her words ringing in my ears.  
The air seems alarmingly thin as I watch her, my heart shattering within my rib cage, its remnants piercing my interior lining, as she flees from the room with her shimmering blue dress balled up in a heap within her tiny, delicate fists.

"Elsa wait!" I call after her, but either she ignores me or my voice simply can't reach her anymore.

I push myself off the floor, wincing at the pain shooting through my entire body with every movement as I stagger to my feet only to stumble to my knees, once again watching as the shadows dance across my field of vision.  
I shake my head and blink several times, trying to clear my senses.  
_Come on Jack. You can do better than this._

I leap to my feet, ignoring the pain as I flick my wrist, drawing my staff to my palm with a simple call of the wind.  
I squat slightly before launching myself into the air and bolting out the balcony doors after Elsa.

_Hang on Elsa.  
Please hang on._

* * *

Elsa

I run.  
I don't know where to exactly.

All I know is that I run, allowing my legs to carry me wherever they wish while my thoughts swim in my mind, floating around in the endless abyss like the remains of a shipwreck.

I dash out of the ice castle, through the door, across the staircase running between the two cliffs, down the mountain at a full sprint.  
My thoughts scattered, my mind in a daze, my heart drumming in my ears, my pulse quickening as the sweat trickles down my temple, merging into the salty tears that drain from my eyes and cascade down my flushed cheeks as I choke back a sob.  
I blink hard and keep sprinting, bounding and stumbling down the hillside, all the while trusting my feet to take me away from here.  
Away from _him._

_I'm sorry Jack.  
__I'm so sorry._

I swipe at my tears before tightening my grasp against the silk of my dress and I keep running, chasing not the rising sun this time, but the silhouetted corners of the vast land spread out before me.  
I run, even with the raging blizzard surrounding me tossing my body back and forth with its forceful wind.  
I run.  
And keep running.

* * *

Jack

"Elsa!"

I shout her name but she only leaves the roaring wind surrounding me to answer my call.

"Elsa!"

I charge through the blinding storm around me, the forceful wind encircling and closing in around me, swallowing me whole as it tugs me this way and that, propelling me backward, away from my desired direction despite my efforts to conduct it to drive me where I please.

I lift a hand to my face, shielding my eyes from the swirling flakes as they sting my eyes, and a struggled grunt escapes my lips when I collide with a tree, the impact sending my mind in a daze as blackness encroaches my vision while my limp body tumbles to the ground. I will the wind to slow my fall but it does not do my bidding, however, my landing is somewhat cushioned by a mound of soft snow waiting for me at the foot of the tree, though the wind is still knocked from my lungs at the impact.

I gasp for air as I bolt upright and snatch my staff from its position in the mound of snow, leaving an indent in its absence, which does not last for long as the flakes sweep across the ground, coating the imprint within seconds.  
I jump to my feet and barrel right back into the clearing, my feet slipping on the frozen ocean beneath me as I try to maintain my balance.  
I plow through the blizzard, blinded by the wind as I propel myself straight into the center of it all, where the forces of nature are at their peak.  
Right in the very heart of the storm.

* * *

Elsa

"Elsa!"

I halt in my tracks, my feet skidding along the icy ground.

"Elsa!"

My heart pounds in my chest, right against my rib cage, threatening to burst out of my body.

"Elsa!"

There it goes again.  
That sound, that call, that voice.  
No matter how faint or small, no wind could drown it out or ever even come close to touching it.

"Elsa!"

I whirl around, the world spinning beneath my feet, causing my stomach to churn.  
And then, I see him.  
His lower half shrouded in the misty wind as it whips at his face and hair, causing him to narrow his piercing blue eyes, which appear even bluer against the glowing white snow.

Something inside me stirs.  
Right in the pit of my heart.  
Something breaks, or melts, or ignites, or maybe all three at once.

The feeling knocks the wind out of me and sends me to collapse onto my knees as they giveaway from under me. The slick ice reflects the sunlight shining from above as it streams through the hazy blizzard as the storm dissipates from around me, leaving only two ghosts hiding in plain sight on the vast expanse of frozen water laid out from beneath us.

* * *

Jack

I call her name, my lips moving but no sound emerges, at least none that I can hear.  
My calls are drowned out by the storm, the wind howling in my ears, pricking at my face and stinging at my eyes.  
At the momment, it is the only thing I can see, hear and feel.

My mouth moves once more, my lips numb from the cool air as I call for her, my voice hidden somewhere in the raging wind, becoming lost to the blizzard and unable to ever reach her.

I can't lose her.  
Not now, not ever.  
Not to this storm.

_Please don't fall Elsa.  
You hear me?  
Don't you dare fall._

I whirl around, stumbling through the hazy snow flurry that surrounds me, hiding my path from my feet.  
The wind slams against my body, shoving me in every possible direction, but I remain firmly planted on the icy surface of the frozen sea beneath me.

And then, just like that, almost as if someone simply just flicked a switch, the hazy blizzard despirses around me, once more revealing the ground at my feet and my surroundings to me.  
My head spins on the hinges of my neck, my eyes scanning my surroundings as I take it all in.  
And then I see her.

She kneels on the slick ground, her shimmering blue dress pooled around her like a puddle of water glowing in the sunlight that now cuts through the clouds hanging against the sky above, which now begins to clear, leaving any and all traces of the storm behind it, as if preparing not for a new ending but a fresh beginning.

I don't speak.  
I don't think.  
I just run.

* * *

Elsa

I hear footsteps.

He runs to me, breathless and sweeps me up in his strong arms, the firm muscles flexing beneath the skin as he wraps me up in them.  
I sob into his blue sweatshirt, the fabric soft and warm against my lips, despite the thin layer of frost sprinkled along his shoulders.

I allow the tears to fall from my eyes.  
For not even a moment do I consider bringing a halt to the waterfall cascading down my face and blurring my vision.  
I let the the river break the dam until it runs dry, while we sit here in the midst of this ceaseless frozen ocean that spreads as far as the eye can see, my body pressed against his as his arms draw me into him to the point it hurts. But there is no pain.

Everything around me evaporates, each of our surroundings dissolving into the other until it is only the two of us remaining.  
The two lone ghosts hiding in plain sight, forever condemned to wander the world aimlessly as the unseen.

His hand finds my chin and raises it so that my eyes meet his, only to discover that he is crying too, and seeing this only triggers a downpour to leak from my eyes, down my flushed cheeks and onto his sweatshirt, the salty water staining the fabric.

He lips part slightly as his soft melodic voice whispers to me, "I'll never let you fall."  
And for the first time in years, his words reach me, his voice unlocking the door to my heart and pulling me back from the edge, his hands clasping tightly around mine, linking us together as one.

He begins to say something more, but I don't give him the chance.  
In one swift motion, my hand snakes around the nape of his neck and draws his lips to mine, the touch soft and warm, yet intense and electrifying at the same time.

_I won't fall Jack.  
__You hear me?  
__I will not fall._

* * *

Jack

I sit there holding her for what seems like forever.  
If only.

If only we could spend forever here, holding each other, our bodies pressed together as one as our lips move against each other in slow, yet intense motions.  
But eventually, our lips part and our eyes open to once more reveal reality to us.

I stare into her eyes, the icy and endless blue in them mesmerizing as I become lost in them while wiping away the tears pooling in her eyes and trickling down her soft, flushed cheeks.  
Her gaze falters for a moment as the color returns to her cheeks, all rosy and red with warmth. My hand finds its way to her neck and rests under her chin as I tilt her head up once again so that her eyes meet mine.

I smile down at her through my tears and it brings a smile to her features, a smile that reaches all the way to her eyes as it lights up her face, and something inside me melts.  
Something always does.

My hands close around hers, our fingers tangled and intertwined with one another as I rise to my feet and pull her up with me before my arms envelope around her waist, drawing her body into mine.  
I feel her chin resting on my shoulder, her tense body relaxing into me as I sigh into her hair, my breath ruffling a few loose strands as my shoulders fall back into place.

I wish I could spend forever here with her.  
In the middle of nowhere with nothing and no one to break us apart.

But our lulling spell is broken when a hollow and empty voice-the type that sends chills all up and down your spine-speaks from behind me, and some small part of me tells me even before I turn around, that I have heard this voice before.

"If you can't escape the fear," It speaks. "Then you must embrace it."


	21. Chapter 20: One With The Storm

**HOLYCRAPHOLYCRAPHOLYCRAPHOLLYCRAP!**

**61 REVIEWS?! OH MY GOD YOU GUYS! YOU'RE ALL JUST AMAZINGLY INCREDIBLE!  
Seriously, I don't even know what to say! Oh my God! Thank you guys! Just thank you so much!  
****Think we can reach 100?:D haha that's okay:) Just know that you guys have helped with my writing so much! More than you can possibly ever know!**

**Okay, I'll let you guys move onto the story now:)  
Chapter 20! YAY!  
More to come hopefully very soon!**

**-birdywings**

* * *

20

One With The Storm

* * *

Elsa

_"If you can't escape the fear, then you must embrace it."_

My body tenses at the voice, the icy hollowness in it sending a chill through my body while its words travel in the air, the wind whispering them in my ears, sending them to echo off the walls of my head.  
There is something about it. Something familiar about its cool emptiness that I am certain I have heard before, but from where I cannot recall.

My hands begin to tremble within Jack's palms, our fingers still interlaced with one another even as we slowly swivel to face the source of the voice with his arms still wrapped around me, our feet sliding on the ice beneath us.  
My breathing ceases as my gaze slowly trails across the expanse of ice between us and our unknown presence before my eyes finally inch their way to his face.

He is shrouded in dark robes, the fabric pooling around his feet, hanging loosely against his pale, grey skin and, as I stare into his piercing gold eyes-the color like the sun when bleeding out into dusk-I become petrified as all my worst nightmares play out before my eyes in the glowing gold of his pupils.

Images flash before my eyes, each one more frightening than the last.  
I'm surrounded by a crowd, their hands gesturing toward me as they cry in fear or shout with hatred at the top of their lungs, leaving me to drown in this ocean of people with every voice plunging me further into the dark abyss yanking me under.

The scene shifts, each person melting into the next until a new scene takes shape.  
Anna stands before me, her eyes ablaze as she points at me, her voice filling the area with sound as she yells at me. But my thoughts are muddled and clouded, my ears clogged, making her cries sound muffled to me.

_Make it go away. Make it all go away.  
_I sink to the rough ground, my hands clamped over my ears as I rock back and forth on my knees.  
_Makeitgoawaymakeitgoawaymakeitgoawaymakeitgoaway._

My surroundings dissolve around me, evaporating into the next image.  
I slowly glance up, my hands quivering against my temples as my gaze lifts to find Jack's head of tousled white hair above me, his blue sweatshirt hugging his shoulders as he stands there, his back to me.

"Jack." I breathe, my voice desperate.

He doesn't speak or even turn around. He only takes a step forward, lengthening the distance between us by that much more.  
My chest grows tight and heavy, the weight almost like he is stepping on me rather than the ground beneath him, and I have to struggle for air as he takes another step away from me.

I place my palms on the ground and pull myself along, my dress sweeping the ground behind me as I drag myself forward after him, trying to reach him. But his back still faces me as he continues to walk away like I'm not even here. As if he is completely oblivious to my very presence, showing me no indication that the Jack Frost I love is still there.  
That my guardian still remains.

The image dissolves into my first fear, which then bleeds into my second and then melts into my third before cycling back to the first again, the scenes on constant replay within the golden strip of his eyes, leaving me to watch, unblinking, breath held, and frozen into place with fear.  
It is the most frightening thing I have ever seen, yet I cannot bring myself to avert my eyes.

I become oblivious to my surroundings as I lose myself in those golden rings. I even forget Jack, who's hand is still linked with mine, his chest pressed against my shoulder blade, and I can just feel his body grow rigid against mine, the muscles flexing beneath his smooth, creamy skin as his chest rises and falls with his breaths.  
I don't even blink when Jack's hand slides under my chin, coming to rest on the side of my face as he draws my cheek to his chest, but my body is as numb and dull as my scattered thoughts, making the contact feel distant as it fails to reach me.

I listen to his heart drum within his rib cage, the sound so close yet so far, and I force myself to concentrate on its rhythm as I rest my hands on his chest, my right palm just over his heart.  
My eyes flick up to find an illegible expression in Jack's features as he gazes at the man opposite us with intense focus.

"Who-Who are you?" My voice quivers, the words rising from within my trembling body as I glance at the man, who remains silent and motionless. Not like a statue-stiff as stone-but more like a lion hunting for its prey through the tall, thin grass.

The man gives an icy, hollow cackle, his head tilting back slightly as the sound rises from deep within his figure, from the very depths of his hollowed form, his entire body jerking forward with it.

"I am quite astonished you don't remember Elsa," He tells me, his tone calm as his every word sends shivers down my spine. "After all, I told you so didn't I? I warned you." He says with a cold smile that reaches all the way to his eyes, his grey skin wrinkling a little at the corners as he reveals a mouthful of gleaming white teeth almost as bright as Jack's.

I freeze then, my body stiffening at his words, and it dawns on me why he voice is so familiar to me.  
I've heard it before.  
In my slumber.  
In a dream.  
In a nightmare.

"Pitch Black." I hear Jack utter just audible enough for me to hear.

My head whips around as I stare up at him, dumbstruck. "How do you-"

But I don't get the chance to finish my sentence as Pitch heaves another cackle, the sound like the terrified cries of children.  
"Oh my dear Elsa, old Jack here and I go way back." He says simply.

I feel Jack's grip tighten around me, his body stiffening as his fingers dig into my skin and I have to clench my teeth to keep from crying out.  
"What do you want?" He spits at Pitch, his voice cold and harsh, a side of Jack Frost I have never been acquainted with until now, and it scares me almost as much as Pitch does.

"Oh, it is not what I want, but _who._" And with that, Pitch raises his hands, as if embracing the sky, and out shoot three black shadows spiraling into stallions with the same piercing gold eyes, but without the white in them._  
_

They charge right for us, and before I can even react, I am thrown to the ground, my shoulder slamming into the ice, causing pain to shoot up into my arm.  
I reach over to cradle my arm and perhaps attempt to rub the pain away when Jack's hands grasp me by the elbows before he yanks me to my feet, the rapid motion causing my head to grow light and fuzzy while my vision blurs as the lights and shadows once again dance across my eyes.

"Look out!" Jack shouts as he tackles me to the ground again.

I watch, dazed, as a silhouetted cloud of crows comes swarming towards us in a large cluster, their constant flapping wings sending feathers into the air while their squawks ring in my ears, drowning out Jack's voice as his lips move, words I cannot hear emerging from his throat.  
He takes hold of my wrist, gripping it tightly as we ascend into the air, leaving the swarm of crows behind us.

He pulls out his staff, aiming the G-shaped tip down at Pitch standing below us before causing ice to erupt from the end.  
Pitch does not even flinch in the slightest. With a simple wave of his hand, a thin wall of shadows sprouts from the ground and acts as a shield for him, and he simply waves it off dismissively with a cold and amused smile.

I am hit from behind, the attack causing my body to grow numb and beyond feeling as we are plunged through the air, our bodies hurling toward the ice below. Jack's hand still holds mine, and I feel my fingers enclose around his as we tumble through the air, the wind whistling in my ears.  
I can't catch my breath. We're falling too fast.  
The wind suddenly picks up and cradles our bodies before setting us down on our feet.

I stumble slightly, trying to regain my balance as I ignore the sharp pain shooting through my backside.  
Jack rests a hand on my shoulder, trying to meet my gaze as his lips move, but there is still too much ringing in my mind to hear his words.

In a flash, blackness comes sailing toward us and strikes Jack in the shoulder, knocking him to the ground.  
A cry catches in my throat, clogging up my airway and I can't breathe, yet I am suddenly filled with energy and am propelled forward by anger as I charge at Pitch, flicking both hands in his direction, causing icy spikes to rise from the ground at his feet and impaling him by the edges of his robes to the side of a mountain.

I approach him, breathless and shaking with rage, but he only laughs coolly at my blazing eyes.

"Good Elsa, good," He says. "Now that you have tapped into your anger, you must use it to control your abilities."

My eyes narrow at him, my nostrils flaring as I shove him against the stone with a burst of ice when out of the corner of my eye, I notice another shadowed stallion racing toward me and I am too late to react.  
I wheeze for air, the impact knocking the wind from my lungs and sending me to skid across the ice.

I am too numb to move.  
The ringing continues in my ears, reaching my mind as I glance up, blinking back the darkness encroaching my vision to see Jack darting through the air as he dodges Pitch's advances and retaliates with strong ice blasts. But Pitch avoids them with little effort, making each evasion look easy.

I prop myself up on my hands, straining to rise to my feet but quickly sink back to the ground, coming once more face to face with my reflection in the ice.  
I stare into my eyes, the blue endless and losing, but not yet lost.  
There is still a chance.  
A chance for Arendelle.  
A chance for Anna.  
A chance for Jack.  
A chance for me.

I leap to my feet, biting down on my lip to contain the moan of pain rising in my throat.  
I glance up in time to see Pitch strike Jack square in the chest with a silhouetted crow, the impact send Jack hurtling toward the mountainside.  
Something within me shatters as I watch his head snap back against the rough stone before his limp body tumbles to the ground motionless, like a rag doll.

With an angry cry, I fly at Pitch, my arms outstretched as ice sprouts from them on all ends, sending flurry after flurry at him, making it difficult for Pitch to keep up with my advances and not long passes before a blast strikes him in the face, causing him to lose his balance and stumble to his knees.  
I glare down at him, my chest heaving with my every breath and my body aching with numbness.

He chuckles as he swipes as his lip as if he has blood trickling down the corner of his mouth.  
"Excellent Elsa." He says, his voice still calm and at ease.

This only angers me more, and I raise I hand for another attack when I hear the faint sound of someone calling my name through the roar of the blizzard raging around me.

"Elsa!"

_Anna._  
My hand halts in midair as the tension rises in my body and builds in my chest.  
My eyes shrink into their sockets as I tremble at the sound of her voice.

Pitch gives another laugh below me. "Ah, it seems we have found what makes the ice shatter," He says, a cold smirk forming in his features. Everything he does is cool with cruelty. "Let us discover just how much damage I can create."

And with that, he shoots up into the air, heading straight for Anna.  
_No._

I lunge across the ice, watching Pitch out of my peripheral vision as he prepares to strike.

"Elsa!"

Her voice rings in my ears.

"Elsa!"

I blink back the tears as they sting at my eyes.

"Elsa!"

I make a leap through the hazy blizzard surrounding me, but for once, not taking me with it as I propel myself into the abyss before me, my destination shrouded in the misty wind. But I am not afraid.  
Not this time.  
I will not allow myself to be lost to the storm anymore.

Darkness flashes before my eyes and something strikes me in the chest, stinging my body at the contact, the pain so sharp I don't even feel the effect of hitting the ice afterward.  
A tear escapes my eye and slips down my cheek.  
But it is not a sad tear.  
It is not sad.  
I am not sad.

For the first time in years, I am at peace.  
As I am one with the storm.


	22. Chapter 21: When Snowflakes Thaw

21

When Snowflakes Thaw

* * *

Jack

Everything is dark for a moment, my mind in a daze as I try to gather my thoughts, which are scattered from corner to corner in my mind.  
My eyes flutter open as I prop myself up on my elbows and all I see for a moment is whiteness, the glow of it around me blinding and hazy, but as I blink away the blurriness in my vision, the scene begins to come into focus and I watch as my surroundings take shape before me. But what I discover seems to shatter my entire universe, the ground quaking beneath me as the walls come crumbling down around me, the whole world fracturing and cracking into nothing, its fragments left to float around in the endless and darkened void of space.

My heart rattles my body and pounds in my ears with every beat, the very sound of it blocking out the rhythm and tunes of life around me.  
I can't breathe.  
I can't think.  
My mind is nothing.  
I feel nothing.  
_I_ am nothing as I watch Pitch's advance strike Elsa in the chest and send her limp body to fall against the ice, her back toward me, leaving the river of snowy-white hair cascading down her back for my gaze to focus on.

Something inside me breaks.  
Something cracks.  
Something shatters, causing whatever focus I have left to wither away with the remnants of my spirit.  
I am breaking but also building as I feel the weight of something plant in my chest and only build with each passing moment as I stare at Elsa's motionless and lifeless figure.

My throat runs dry as a combination of a scream, cry, and wail leaves my mouth, but doesn't quite reach my ears.  
I find myself flying at Pitch, propelled by the anger rising within me, and I do it without deciding to or even realizing it until he is on the ground with my staff jutting into his face, my hands gripping the rough surface, causing my knuckles to turn white as I shove the tip of it at his jaw.

He allows a spine-tingling cackle to pass through his lips as he smiles coolly up at me, his features harsh and unsettling, yet calm with an almost hungry look to them, like a lion pursuing its prey. But I barely process the aura of fear his very presence radiates as I stand there, my body rigid and tense with anger as I aim the point of my staff at his chest, where all the fear in the entire world arises from.

He laughs again, throwing his head back as the hollow echo of the sound rattles his silhouetted, frail figure.  
"You can't do it can you? Not even after I melt your precious little snowflake from your life," He practically sings, like the words are pure music to his ears. A kind of growl escapes me as I narrow my eyes at him and thrust the end of my staff against his chest.

"Go ahead. Do it. It will be your undoing." He chuckles.

My body tenses as I shift my feet against the icy ground, preparing to strike.  
But something prevents me.

My thoughts are clouded, scattered.  
I am blinded by pain and anger, but not completely.

This is not what Elsa would want.  
I can't kill him.  
That is not who I am.  
But I can hurt him, and although no amount of pain I bring him will ever compare to the agonizing suffering he has caused me, I can still grant him some portion of what he deserves.

With a cry of misery and anger, I slash my staff through the air and bring it into contact with Pitch's jaw, willing the raging blizzard around me to toss him through the air.  
He sails on the wind, limbs flailing until he collides with the stoned edge of a cliff.  
A moment passes before he rises to his feet, but not without wincing a little before the cold smile returns to his features. But this one is a little less confident, a little less certain.

"Another day Frost," He calls to me, his voice echoing in the storm. "Another day."  
And with his last words hanging in the wind, his figure dissolves into a shadow, taking the aura of fear with him.

The anger drains from my body, all adrenaline leaving my muscles as my eyes trail once again over to Elsa's immobile figure lying only a few feet away, her silky blue skirts pooled around her frame like a puddle.  
I feel my staff slip through my fingers and clatter to the ice at my feet, the racket unable to reach me as my legs carry me over to her, my breaths entering and exiting as shallow, desperate gasps.

I slip an arm beneath her head, right under the crook of her neck as I bring her eyes to meet mine.  
The blue in them still remains, but fades with her every gasp for air as she breathes, her voice weak and pleading, "Jack."

My lips part slightly as I prepare to tell her that she's okay. That she is going to be okay. That I'm going to make this okay. That I'm here.  
But the words never emerge.  
Because deep down, I know that they are empty promises.

She is not okay. She will never be okay. I cannot fix this. I cannot save her.  
But I am here.  
And I'm not going anywhere.

I say nothing.  
Because she is too wonderful and pure to be true for empty promises.  
Instead, I let the tears cascade down my cheeks and stain the blue in her dress.  
I let the river run dry as I become lost in her ceaseless eyes. The blue losing and eventually, will be lost.

"Jack," She gasps again, her lungs searching for air. "Promise-, promise me,"

I hold her close, her body pressed as tightly against mine as possible while I gaze at her, my vision blurry with tears as she struggles to get the words out.

"Promise me you won't let it happen again," She chokes, her every breath an effort. "Promise me you will not allow a single child in the world to grow up the way I did. Promise me Jack."

She winces and the sight of her in pain like this punctures my heart as I reply with, "I promise Elsa."  
She nods a little, her eyelids fluttering slightly as she fights to remain conscious.

Part of me wants to grasp her by the shoulders and shake the drowsiness from her.  
But the other part of me wants to beg her to just succumb to death already.  
To let go and fade from consciousness, fade from the world and life itself.  
To give in to eternal slumber, never to wake again.  
As long as she is at peace, I do not care what becomes of me.

Her head dips slightly on the hinges of her neck, her eyelids growing heavier with each passing moment and I can just feel her pulse fading from her body as the her heart begins to slow, the beats becoming less frequent as large gaps fill the spaces between them, the sound drumming in my ears-slow and torturous.

Her eyes suddenly flick open, revealing to me not the endless and vibrant blue they once were, but the ceaseless and empty voids they are now. The darkness filling the hollow abyss that now make up her orbs, swallowing what was left of the beautiful and unbridgeable blue.

Her hands reach out for me, clawing against me, one snaking up my chest and grasping my sweatshirt by the collar while the other grips my wrist, twisting it as her fingernails dig into my skin, but I don't feel anything.  
The only pain I feel is from watching her like this, desperate and losing to the darkness rising within her that I am helpless to stop.  
I free my wrist from her grasp and interlace my fingers with hers, the contact of our skin still sending a faint, electric chill to seep into my body.

"Don't leave me Jack!" She gasps as every one of her fears plays across her darkened pupils. "Don't leave me!"

I grip her hand, the feeling of her small, delicate palm familiar in mine as our fingers become muddled and intertwined as one.

"I'm not going anywhere Elsa, I promise." I tell her, trying desperately to reach her even when I know I no longer can.

Her eyes widen one last time as her body goes tense, and then, nothing.  
Her head dips on her neck, her entire body relaxing into mine as her eyelids draw over her orbs as easily as a curtain draws over a window just as the color returns to them, the darkness melting into the blue, and I know that as they close, it will be the last time I will ever lay eyes upon her endless blue eyes.

* * *

**...**

**... Don't hate me.**

**... Please don't hate me.**

**Hehe, sorry about this chapter guys! But it was unfortunately necessary for my story:/  
How awful of me I know! But this is NOT the end guys I promise! We still have our ways to go.**

**I guess a few of you, if not all can now see where I'm going with thisXD eh, oh well!  
Just please don't stop reading because of this! I promise it will get better! Eventually...XD**

**Anyway, leave a review if you can! I really appreciate them you guys!  
More to come hopefully very soon, though the earliest I will probably be able to update next is Sunday, no promises though!**

**Thanks for reading guys! It really means a lot!  
And remember this is NOT the end!  
-birdywings**


	23. Chapter 22: Stones & Frosted Flowers

22

Stones &amp; Frosted Flowers

* * *

Jack

_Don't go Elsa.  
Please don't leave.  
Please._

I'm left with her lifeless body cradled in my arms, watching as the color and flush recede from her creamy skin, in the midst of this ceaseless frozen land that stretches farther than I can see.  
I listen as the storm begins to dissipate around me. Fading, just as the life does from Elsa's body, leaving me alone with her skirts pooled around me like water, and I wish I would drown already.

Elsa.  
My beautiful snowflake.  
Always giving me strength.  
Always convinced she was falling even when she was actually flying.  
Always bringing the light to my shadows.  
Always melting my heart when I least expect it.

_Elsa.  
__Falling.  
__Fading.  
__Dying._  
_Gone._  
_  
_

I slip a hand beneath her neck and shut my eyes as I press my forehead hard against hers, wishing that the life coursing through my body could somehow drain from me and into her, drawing her back from the brink. From the shadows that shroud her into empty and eternal darkness until she is nothing.

I draw her lips to mine and keep them there, feeling her soft flesh against mine as the warmth fades from her skin. I press gently at first, and then more forcefully with more strength than I acquire at the moment, my lips waiting for hers to kiss me back.  
But they never do.

I know that my time with Elsa was never meant to last.  
But I thought I had more time than this.  
I _want_ more time than this.

But I guess I snowflake that glows that bright and falls that long, eventually has to melt from the world.  
From me.

I don't know how long I sit here caressing her in my arms and begging the Man in The Moon to bring her back.  
But eventually, I am pulled back from deep inside myself by the simplest and faintest call;

"Elsa!"

My movements are mechanical and rigid.  
I ease Elsa's body gently to the ground until she comes to rest on the cool ice, her head lolling back on her neck.  
My arm slides out from beneath her, my fingers slipping through hers, widening the gap between us. A distance so wide and great that nothing could ever close it or draw us back together as one.

There is no going back.  
No calling for her.  
No reaching for her.  
No catching her.  
No holding her.

I am cursed with timelessness and she is cursed with time.  
Her clock has come to its end while mine will continue to tick, counting each second of every minute, each minute of every hour, each hour of every day, each day of every week, each week of every month, each month of every year, each year of every decade, each decade of every century, and yet, I will not age a single second.  
My clock will never meet its end.  
Its ticks will always be the sound to fill the hollow and silent indents in my life left behind by Elsa.  
It will never run out of time to count, because just like my clock; time is endless.

That familiar icy chill strikes me when Anna dart through me and to Elsa's side, but I no longer feel the cold.  
All I feel is the emptiness settling inside me, growing and devouring me with it as my eyes track the tears slipping down Anna's face and onto the shimmering blue that Elsa's dress still shines, the color radiating and full of life.  
It strikes me as odd, because you would think that all life and streaks of color in the world would die with the dead. That all living things should come to a halt just as she did. That all things should be filled to the breaking point with pain and sadness just as you are. That everyone and everything in this universe should suffer just as you are.

It not fair.  
Out of all us, why Elsa?  
She never received the life she deserved, so why her?  
Why?  
Why?  
Why? Why? Why?  
Whywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhy?

My ears throb with the sound of Anna's choked sobs of misery and pain filling the deafening silence of the world around us.  
My eyes trail her hands as they caress Elsa's face in her palms, her tears falling from her cheeks onto Elsa's skin as the color leaves her, taking who and everything she was with it.

I don't remember leaving, but somehow, I do.

I shove against the ice beneath me, pushing myself to my feet as I make a snatch for my staff before disappearing through the forest and shrubbery, leaving Elsa, whoever I was when I met her, and everything we knew together behind.  
It's all behind now.  
All gone.  
Fading from me into my scattered thoughts and clouded memory, because that's all she is now.  
A memory.

A ghost from the past.  
A disoriented fragment of memories and events.  
A voice of music and melody coming together to create a song of what was.

I stumble through the forest, blinded by pain and tears, relying on my feet to carry me away from it all.  
Away from the past.  
Away from the memories.  
Away from the ghost.  
Away from her.

I feel nothing.  
I am nothing.  
I am only composed of the sound of her voice whispering my name, the sight of her blue eyes falling closed for the final time, the feeling of her fingers slipping through mine.

I am lost.  
Shrouded in nothing.  
Lost to nothing and yet, everything.  
Nothing can pull me back.

I curse the world.  
I curse life, and I dare curse the Man in The Moon himself.

_Why? Why did you grant me her if you were just going to snatch her from me? Take her away as simply as if you took an eraser and smudged her away from my life? Why? Have you no conscience? Have you no care? Have you no soul? How about a heart? Why?  
__Why?_

I hack and slash my way through the shrubbery, mowing down everything in my path, trying to make it all feel as defeated, useless and broken as I am.  
I can feel everything melting around me, one thing into the next. My emotions tearing down the walls around me, turning me inside and out. My whole world and everything I am crumbling until I am nothing but the memory of her.

_Don't fall Elsa.  
You hear me?  
__Don't you dare fall._

* * *

Jack

It is quiet.  
Much too quiet.  
The silence is not only suffocating, but deafening as well.  
It is as if the entire land has died with Elsa, fading just as her spirit had.

The whole kingdom becomes empty, hollow shells, everyone roaming the village zombically, each person doing and saying whatever necessary in order to continue walking.  
Life in Arendelle becomes grey, silent and flavorless.  
Not a strip of color in sight.  
Not a single laugh to be heard echoing off the palace corridors to fill the silence.

All I see is grey.  
In the villagers clothing.  
In their sad eyes, much like the grey in the veil of clouds that has descended upon the land.  
And of course, in the sky.

I continue to scour for a ray of blue everytime I find myself glancing up and I become desolate all over again to discover that the grey still remains. But then I feel a slight pang of happiness at the discovery too, because if the color is ever to return to life; then the only person I ever want to share that joy with is Elsa. She would love it too.  
I can just see the two of us-my hand wrapped tightly around her waist, linking us as one as we rise into the air towards clouds fluffy with white and a sky bluer than the ocean as it shields the world from darkness like a blanket.

If Elsa is never to lay eyes upon a blue sky again, then no one should be allowed to.

I approach the tombstone lying in my path, my staff trailing behind me, drawing careless circles and tracks as my feet drag me forward through the soft, fluffy blanket of snow littering the ground, which now begins to melt to reveal patches of soft green blades of grass here and there.  
Any and all traces of the blizzard now begin to melt with Elsa's death.

The storm has finally ceased.  
It has finally given in after years of fighting for control.  
After years of raging within her, clawing for her will.  
It is over.  
It is done.  
She is at peace.

I stand before the stone, the words engraved in the rough surface bore a hole through me as the grey-clothed crowd of mourners disperses around me, breaking off from each other as they depart in small groups, leaving me with this tombstone and a ghost from the past.  
I sink to my knees, my hand resting on the stone, tracing each letter of every word inscribed in the rough surface.

_Here lies Queen Elsa of Arendelle.  
__Beloved daughter and sister.  
Will forever live in the hearts of all those who love and miss her dearly._

I make a throaty sound that is half snort and half scoff at this.  
It is a lie.  
Words of cunning and deceit.  
Of falsehood and fibs, made only to comfort the endless line of mourners that only appears when she no longer needs anyone.

No one has forever to love and miss her.  
No one but me.  
When I reach the last letter, I return to the first one and start again.

I made her a promise thirteen years ago, on a winter's night with a sky inky with darkness and bright with countless stars and a full moon.  
But I also made her a promise only a short few days ago, in the midst of a hazy blizzard swirling through the streets of Arendelle, and no matter how much I desire to remain here alongside her final resting place, I need to fulfill my last vow to her.  
The final words I ever spoke to her.

I cup my hands over my lips before exhaling against my palms, releasing my cool breath on them with my entire body.  
I take the one step I need to and gently place the iced flower at the foot of the headstone before stepping back and giving the snow-covered ground beneath me one last gentle pat, as if it can reach her.

"I love you Elsa," I whisper through slightly parted lips. "I promise."

I sit there studying the headstone for ages, tracing the letters etched in the stone by people who think they knew her but are mistaken and will never get the chance to.  
I can't even think about leaving her, but I will. Soon. In time.  
I will once again become the ghost hiding in plain sight.  
Return to nothing more than the nip at your nose and the numbness at your fingers and toes.  
Nothing but an embodiment of season hiding in the winds of winter.

* * *

**Oh God you guys:,( ugh! I'm so mean:P  
hehe anyway, hope this chapter was to your liking, despite the depressing aura of it all.**

**Thanks so much for the reviews, favorites and follows everyone! Leave your thoughts on this chapter if you can, I really appreciate the feedback!:)  
More to come soon!  
**

**-birdywings**


	24. Chapter 23: A World Within A World

23

A World Within A World

* * *

Jack

I see her eyes when I close mine, her blue staring into mine and it is like becoming lost and found at the same time.  
I feel her in the first snow of winter, when everything is fresh and new again as nature prepares for the change in seasons. The delicate snowflake I cradle reminds of her hands; dainty and vulnerable, yet firm and capable, and my heavy heart seems to melt with it just as quickly as it had landed in my palms.  
I see her in Sandy's dream streamers night by night, her smile lighting up the dusky hours, when the whole world is silent with sleep.  
I hear her in the wind, her soft voice whispering my name like the soothing sound of the ocean as the waves overlap each other.

"Jack."

I close my eyes, just to catch a glimpse for even just a moment more of the endless blue as it leaks off the corners of my vision.

"Jack."

I picture her in her silky blue dress, the tiny ice incrustations sparkling in the light as the sun illuminates them.  
My eyes study her every feature; from the crown of her snowy-white hair, to the curve in her eyelashes, to the tip of her nose, to the glossy surface of her fingernails, to the hem of her shimmering skirts where they pool at her feet.

"Jack!"

I surface from my reverie at the faint call of my name, and my eyes flick open to discover Jamie and his sister Sophie barreling toward me, hands armed with snowballs and chests heaving with cheeks flushed with red as they huff and puff for air.  
I grin and take to the air when their ammo comes pelting my way.

They laugh and giggle as they sink to the ground, the blanket of snow crunching beneath their feet as they put together more snowballs.  
I tuck my arm behind my back, a smile creeping into my features as a snowball takes shape in my palm and with a swing of my arm, the ammo sails through the air and strikes Jamie square in the back.  
He glances up in astonishment, his brown eyes lit with mischief and elation as he tosses another snowball at me.

I glide through the air, surfing the wind as I listen to the crunch of Jamie's footsteps as he chases me around the yard, pelting attack after attack with Sophie trailing behind him, a bundle of snowballs cradled in her arms and grasped tightly against her chest.

Laughter runs through me as I run along the side of the house, my movements rattling the windows as I dodge Jamie's advances.  
I descend to the ground only to be struck in the shoulder by the lone snowball of Jamie's that managed to hit me, and I feel a smile tugging at my lips as I watch him topple over in a fit of laughter with Sophie joining him not long after in a pile, their two small bodies creating a mound of limbs and laughter.

My staff digs into the earth, creating a dent in the snow and mushy ground as I lean on it with my chin resting on the tip as I stand there watching them, their laughter filling the air and bubbling within me.  
The very sound of fun.

My eyes shift from the siblings and into the sky where the sunsets on the distant horizon, causing oranges, purples and pinks to cut through the vibrant blue dome hanging over us.  
I see her hiding in there somewhere, between colors. Within them, even. Her eyes gazing down upon me. Upon the world I have built for myself over the long and unbearable years.

It has been almost two-hundred years since the time of her passing, when she sank into the inevitable eternal slumber. Since she faded from the world, leaving me with nothing and no one to live for.  
I was once more left with no purpose in the world.  
Without Elsa, I'm lost.  
Empty.  
A hollow shell that can never be filled.

To say I got better is an overstatement.  
I did not improve needless to say.  
But I did somehow manage to prevent myself from getting any worse.

I had once laughed at the very idea of becoming a guardian.  
At the thought of scrambling around to put together last-minute gifts, or painting eggs, or gathering teeth. At the thought of deadlines and hard work all year round for one day of the year. At the thought of abiding by the rules of the Man in The Moon who, not even to mention, ignored my questions in need of answers for centuries.  
But that was all then. When I didn't have any believers of my own.  
This is now.

I am Jack Frost, guardian of fun and one of the five protectors to the children of the world.  
I found myself a home.  
Friends.  
A family.  
Believers.  
A purpose.  
I built my very own world within a world and I do not intend to let it go.  
To allow it to slip through my fingers the way she did.

Since becoming a guardian, I made sure it didn't happen again.  
That every child lives the childhood they should.  
With games, laughter, silliness and fun.

It has been a year since we saw Pitch Black being dragged into a hole by fear of his own making.  
And though we have not seen a sign of him since, that does not mean he is gone for good.  
Because as long as there is one being roaming the earth, fear will always exist.

I may have found myself a new life, but that does not mean she ever leaves me.  
She is with me all the time, in fact.  
Day by day.  
Night by night.

I try to bury her deep in the shadows of my mind, where the memories are at their vaguest and cloudy.  
But she emerges anyway.  
When I least expect it.

I draw my attention from the sky and to the two young children before me, who await and anticipate my next action.

"That was awesome!" Jamie cries, tossing his hands up in the air to emphasize his point. "Let's go sledding now! Or build a snowman! Or ice skate!"

I chuckle, the sound bouncing off the walls of my body as I smile at him, but falter a little as I tell him, "Actually Jamie, I have to get going."

Hi shoulders slump a little and my eyes detect his disappointment with sadness as he tries to hide it. "But you only just got here! Caleb, Pippa and the others haven't even arrived yet! We were supposed to have the ultimate snowball fight." He says, his eyes gleaming.

I will a corner of my lips to turn up as I rub at the back of my neck with my hand. "I know, and I promise we'll get on with that as soon as I return... There's just something I have to d first. Somewhere I have to go. Someone I have to meet." I feel a tint of red creeping into my cheeks as I say the last sentence.

Jamie's eyebrows knit together for a moment as he considers this, his mind rolling, racing, at work. "Is this someone... perhaps a _girl_?" He asks, his eyebrows flicking up teasingly.

I smirk at him, unable to contain my amusement. "Don't be silly you little rascal," I say, ruffling his shaggy brown hair. "Now go on, have some fun. I'll see you both later."

"It's not fun without you Jack, so you better hurry and get back!" He smirks and turns to scamper off but appears to think better of it as he glances back at me hovering in the air above him. "Oh, and good luck on your date!" He calls over his shoulder before taking Sophie by the hand, and I watch as their two little figures disappear through the sliding glass door and into the house.

I laugh to myself before turning toward the setting sun in the distance, the colors of daylight draining into the early evening.  
Blues bleed into oranges, oranges melt into pinks, pinks merge into purples, purples mix into navy, and navy blends into the black of night.

I sigh and kick at the air, letting the breeze brush against my skin as I breathe it in, the first snow of winter entering my body, and I am refreshed with this experience as I whisper to the winter air, "Wind, take me to Arendelle."

* * *

**Hope this chapter was to everyone's liking!  
So I'm assuming everyone's busy with summer activities and vacations and whatnot, but I truly hope that you can all drop by and take a peek at my story when you have the available time again!**

**And thank you to the people who read and reviewed my last chapter!  
Let me know your thoughts on this one if you can, I love reading the amazing feedback!**

**More to come soon!**

**-birdywings**

**P.S. And to my lovely followers; come on, you know you want to review;)**


	25. Chapter 24: The Snow Queen

**Hey everybody!**

**I'm so glad you all liked my last chapter! I had a lot of fun writing it just as I do with every one of my chapters, despite the depressing aura of the previous scene.:,(  
Sorry about that guys!**

**Anyway here's 24! Also, I will be making some edits in the first few chapters, just a few minor things here and there including all the grammer errors I made. Well, I'll try to correct as many as I can because let's face it; it's pretty tough to catch all of them:/ I think the only chapter I will be making some major edits on is 1. So if you guys are interested in taking a look at that, I just wanted to let you guys know that I'll try to get it up within the next week or so. **

**Anyway, please enjoy and let me know your thoughts if you can! I love reading all you amazing feedback!**

**-birdywings**

* * *

24

The Snow Queen

* * *

Elsa

_Elsa.  
__The Snow Queen._

Elsa is my name.  
And I am the Snow Queen.

How do I know this?  
The moon told me so.  
It is all he has ever told me.

His words whisper in my mind, echoing off the walls of my head as they lure me out of my deep slumber.  
Out from the darkness and into the light.

My eyes flick open, revealing to me the darkness that encircles and devours me.  
My hair and shimmering blue skirts float around me, and I become conscious of the water I sit in, yet, I find no difficulty in breathing.  
I bring my hands close to my face, inspecting the tiny nails and delicate fingers in the darkness as my vision adjusts.  
Long, thick strands of my platinum-blonde hair waves in the ripples, getting caught in the water's calmness as my skirts pool around me, the tiny ice crystals catching the moonlight streaming through the thin layer of ice above me.

_Elsa.  
__The Snow Queen._

Suddenly, I begin to rise.  
My entire body lifting toward the surface as I breakthrough the ice and gasp for air, the cool, crisp evening air new and refreshing in my body as it travels to my lungs.  
I rise into the air until I come to float before the moon, my eyes gazing up at him as he drenches the world in his evening glow, and I swear I can see him nod in acknowledgment down at me as I feel his gaze landing upon me, as if studying me.  
It is a nod of understanding but somehow also feels like one of approval, as if he is granting me permission to do something. Though what, I do not yet know.

I descend to the icy ground below, planting my feet on the slick surface as I trace my toes along the ice, relishing the glorious feeling of the cool surge I feel run through me.  
A giggle of pleasure escapes my lips as I enjoy the feeling of being alive.  
I take a trembling step forward, my knees wobbling under my weight, and I have to plant my palms flat against the ice when I stumble.  
I laugh to myself, even as I study the wound on my palm from my fall.

And suddenly, I'm running.  
I leap to my feet and take off through the clearing, my feet sliding along the ice with my skirts and hair flowing in the light breeze behind me.  
I take it in.  
I take it all in, allowing myself to run wild and free without even so much as grasping my skirts to prevent the messy world from staining the silky blue fabric.

I run.  
And keep running.  
Even when my lungs can no longer find air.  
When they burn from the lack of oxygen as they claw up and down the walls of my body, searching for any source of air.  
I run with the moon gazing down upon me, bathing me in its glow along with the distant flecks of stars dotting the inky night sky.  
I only halt when my ears detect the crackling of ice beneath me, and I look down to discover frost spreading from the sole of my blue heels and across the frozen expanse of the pond.

My mind is blank for only a moment as I lean over the area, inspecting the patterns I leave in the ground.  
I giggle to myself, letting the sound to echo through the air before dissolving into the silence of the night.  
Surely I can create more.

I take a step back, extending my arms out at my side as I inhale the crisp air deeply, feeling the coolness of it sink into my lungs.  
I flick my wrists, my finger extending and bending back as icy patterns spiral out from the tips and into the air above me, and I gaze up in wonder and glee at the cloud of snowflakes that hovers above me and begins to rain upon the clearing.

I wave my arms through the air.  
Flick my wrists and twirl around on the ice, allowing my feet to glide against the slick surface as I let it go.  
I let it all go.  
Let it all drain from my body as my mind drifts into the world beyond me, riding the winds and chasing the sun, moon, stars and whatever else may lie beyond.  
I feel light, free and full of life.

My mind was so distant with my hazy thoughts that I hadn't noticed I'm once again ascending into the air, toward the moon hanging against the dusky veil of the night with its gleaming shine.  
I float here for several moments before I register that it is I who triggers this.  
I can fly.

I giggle again, unable to suppress my thrill and exhilaration at possessing these abilities.  
I kick at the air, propelling myself through the quiet night as I attempt to control my flight pattern.

I sail through the air, feeling the wind whip against my face, prick at my skin and eyes with my dress and hair flowing behind me.  
I listen to it whistle in my ear, carrying a tune all its own as it seems to tell me a story. A story of the events occurring over the course of the late hours of the evening.  
A smile unravels in my lips and reaches my eyes as I listen to the rhythm of the howling wind.

The world shifts past me in a blur, one thing merging into the next.  
I fly past trees, mountains, houses and my eyes twinkle as the catch them ember glow of streetlamps rushing past me.  
I manipulate the wind until my speed decreases and I'm hovering just over the snow-covered ground below.

I run through the streets, incapable of containing my laughter as I dance and skip along the pavement, my heels tapping against cement.  
I raise my hands and watch as the snow erupts from my palms, causing a downpour of snowflakes in the eve of night.  
I giggle and am about to create more when I catch sight of two figures out of my peripheral vision, their features concealed by the shadows lurking in the night.

I skip up to them, eyeing their interlaced hands with a warm smile as I ask them, my breath exiting as a cloud of steam, "Oh, hello, might either of you be able to tell me exactly where I-"

My words are lost to the wind as the air is knocked from my lungs at the spine-chilling impact when the couple walk hand in hand straight through me.  
I clutch a hand to my chest, my breathing rapid and shallow as my thoughts race through my mind. My body trembles as I attempt to slow the drumming of my heart as it rings in my ears, and I swivel to watch the couple disappear into the shadows beyond the glow of the streetlamp.

I am nothing.  
Nothing but the chill in the wind and nip at you nose, fingers and toes.  
I am the ghost of winter.  
The ghost roaming the earth in plain sight.

I am alone.  
I am lost.


	26. Chapter 25: A Ghost Of The Past

25

A Ghost Of The Past

* * *

Jack

Snow crunches beneath me as I plant my feet on the ground, my toes digging into the earth, and I find that the town is buzzing with life this late afternoon.  
People mill around the square, shuffling in and out of the rows of shops and buildings that line the streets before exiting and becoming once again absorbed into the constant flowing river of traffic that runs along the pavement and weaves through the tall structures that tower above them.  
There is a light breeze in the air, the wind carrying the scents of the salty ocean, the pine trees in the forest and many more delectable aromas that waft through the streets of Arendelle.

The town is alive with energy and movement as the citizens go about their lives.  
Each person completely oblivious of the lives that had once thrived here many centuries ago.  
Of the ancient scent of history that, although faint, still wafts through the air and surfs the wind.  
Of the stories that had been written here.  
Of the ghosts that still linger here.

It boils my blood to see these strangers tromping through the roads of her home.  
To see them mowing down everything in their path as if they own the world.  
Own her, and everything she was.

It feels trespassed upon.  
Like an intrusion.  
An Invasion.

They have no idea.  
No clue as to what life occurred here over the years.  
They're too young.  
Too careless to understand.  
To grasp the meaning of what this place means to me.

I see her in the streets, standing out from everyone else in the midst of the ocean of people.  
I hear her harmonic voice and laughter bouncing off the buildings surrounding me on all ends.  
I watch as her glistening blue skirts bleed out onto the pavement before vanishing in between the brick buildings.  
I gaze at her eyes when the endless blue follows me in the glass windows of the bakery as I pass by.  
I see her lingering on the edges of forgotten places, where the memories of her still remain fresh and pure in the areas in which we have left our fingerprints behind.

I flinch as my eyes scan the memories of the past, sweeping over the town, the streets, the buildings, the palace, her figure, her eyes, her smile. Each memory reopening old wounds that I had worked hard to stitch back up and bury deep in the back of my mind, leaving them to heal in the silhouetted corners of untouched thoughts, where they have lain long and silently. Where I was able to forget them.  
Forget her.

I avert my eyes from her ghost and continue on my path to my desired destination.  
Through the paved roads where the river of pedestrians overflows.  
Past the palace that was once her home.  
Into the royal garden that has long been sapped of life and wilts with sorrow over these long years.  
And finally, along the blanket of snow covering the ground, I stand before a plot of ground with the fading words engraved in the stone boring though me as I gaze upon her final resting place.  
Where I last left her, all that she was and everything we were together.  
Where I buried the memories and left the ghosts to linger.  
Where I forgot her.

I sink to my knees, my eyes stinging as they remain on the etched words in the stone where they fade with age and time, as the snow melts beneath me an soaks through my pants and onto the patch of skin over my knees.  
My hand lifts and hovers over the stone as my fingers trace the words, outlining each letter until I reach the end, and then, I start over.

It is not as if I feel her presence more strongly here than anywhere else, in fact, the times feel her closest to me are when I least expect them.  
In the sky.  
In the moon.  
In the stars.  
In the dreams.  
In the laughter of children.  
In the first snow of the year.

I see her everywhere.  
I feel her everywhere.  
She never leaves me.

But I feel this plot is the only place we can be alone together.  
Free from shackles or prying eyes.  
From distractions and interruptions.  
From the constant and unwavering bustle and movement of life.

I wave my hand over the soft sheet of snow at the foot of her headstone, where an ice flower sprouts from the earth and blooms in the thick of winter.  
My eyes close as a small and content smile tugs at my lips as I breathe in the winds of winter.

"Hey El,"

I lose myself to the memory of the first out of the few times I called her that, the day still clear and fresh in my mind.

_"Jack no! Stop!" She giggled, her cheeks burning a rosy red as she struggled to escape my arms._

_I tightened my grip around her waist.  
The feeling of her body pressed against mine with the skin on her neck inches from my lips sending my mind in a daze and my heart pounding in my chest and ears. I have to shake my head a little to clear my senses and ignore the sudden and dizzying urge to plant a kiss against the patch of soft skin revealed to me._

_She elbows me lightly in the ribs, causing my arms to fall loose around her, and she takes this opportunity to break free.  
My eyes follow her as she stumbles away, breathless with her efforts and laughter as she gasps for air._

_I become mesmerized with the twinkle in her eyes, the light in them rare and easily extinguished. But tonight, it burns brighter than the sun ever could.  
Her smooth hair sits in a fluffy tangle upon the crown of her head with several blond strands slipping loose from her braid. She almost looks as if she wears a cloud over her head._

_My eyes trail her delicate hand as she reaches up and tucks a dangling strand behind her ear.  
I don't even try to contain the grin that spread in my feature as I inch toward her, my eyes losing in hers._

_"Jack, no. Someone is going to hear us." She tells me as her fingers tangle themselves into her braid._

_I smirk at her, closing the distance between us. "Aw, come on El," I say to her as my fingers entangle themselves with hers within her hair._

_She smiles a little, trying to fight the tug in her lips as if she isn't sure if it's safe to smile._

_"Are you trying to give me a nickname Jack Frost?" She whispers, her tone daring._

_I feel the corner of my lips turn up as I whisper back, "Yes, is it working?"_

_"Why? Is my name too plain?" I can feel her smile as I tie her fingers with mine, her breath warm on my skin._

_"Nonsense. I love your name. I don't want to cheat myself out of a single syllable."_

I smile at the memory even now, when all that's left of her is the ghost of her lingering at the edges of her kingdom.  
The ghost of her lips against mine.  
The ghost of her fingers sliding into mine.  
This plot and the entire world that she knew gone, buried beneath the earth with her.  
The fragmented memories scattered from corner to corner in what was once her home.

I smile as those fragments come together piece by piece, reminding me of her, who she was, who we were and everything we knew.  
They remind me of the story we wrote, of the places we saw and the lives we touched together.

"It's been awhile."

* * *

Jack

My palms grow slick with sweat in the pouch of my sweatshirt as I walk through the crowded streets, not even conscious of the icy chill that runs through me as wave after wave of people flow through me while night descends upon us, the moon arising from somewhere on the horizon as dusk settles in the sky.  
It's all coming back to me now.

Everything comes flooding back to me.  
The mornings we spent icing the ground beneath her window.  
The afternoons we spent creating fun for the village children below.  
The evenings we spent tracing shapes and figures in the condensation fogging over the glass.

She is nowhere, yet everywhere.  
And then, out of nowhere, she is somewhere.

My feet come to a halt in the snow.  
The world seems to become as still and as silent as the thick of night, yet it all seems to rush past me.  
The world spins beneath me, sending my mind reeling faster than the winds can carry me.  
The wind is knocked from my body, the air becoming thick with heat as it rises in my body, making me feel as dried up as a wilted flower.

There she stands in the midst of an ocean, standing out from every one else. From all the heads bobbing against the waves.  
She is the only one I see.  
Her skirts catch in the evening breeze and pool at her feet as she tries to grab the attention of the sea of people around us. Trying to be seen, heard and felt.  
Eyes that will never be met. A voice that will never be heard. A hand that will never be held.  
Her small, dainty hands tangling within each other as they fidget at her chest, just over her beating heart, which I'm sure is racing just as, if not faster than mine.  
Her lips are full and pink with life as they quiver slightly.  
Her braid rests on her left shoulder, the way she liked it, the thick, smooth strands folded over one another as it trails down her radiant skin that seems to emanate a faint glow around her figure.  
Her eyes are bright and searching, the blue filling the orbs with its richness as I lose myself to them.

Her blue catches mine and I am absorbed into a universe colorful with possibility.  
My mind is racing.  
My blood boiling.  
My heart pounding.  
My breathing ceasing.  
The color drains from my face as I watch her, frozen into place, unmoving, breath held.

She is here.  
She is here.

Everything comes hurtling toward me, a force so great I can't catch my breath.  
All the memories, every chapter, every word of what we wrote comes rushing at me as I remember.  
I see her now, and I am nothing but completely alive.

"Elsa..."

* * *

Jack

I stumble through the crowd, my hands clawing at the waves of pedestrians as they hurl toward me, slamming against my body and tossing me every which way possible but toward her.  
My mind is blank, yet scattered at the same time as I try to focus. Try to regain my senses.  
I am desperate, gasping for air as if I am drowning.  
Drowning in the warm bodies around me as the blood pumps through them and courses in their veins.  
Drowning in the voices echoing off the surrounding buildings as they wash over my voice when I call her name.  
Drowning in my own muddled thoughts as I try to process what my eyes are seeing.

But I can't think.  
All I can do is allow my feet to carry me to her.  
To let them sweep me away through this ocean thick with people in hopes of reaching her.  
But no matter how much I fight the current, I don't seem to be getting any closer to her.

She is all I can see.  
Every person around us, in the gap between us, evaporates even as they shove me backwards, widening the distance between us, and for a moment it seems as if we stand alone on these paved streets. Our bodies bobbing against the waves as we float there, alone as the two lonely and broken spirits we are.

_I have to reach her.  
__I have to._

I dash through the water, darting through body after body until I have run through so many that I have lost count.  
I don't care.  
I don't care.

I need her.  
She is my light.  
The air I breathe.  
The music I listen for.  
The hand I reach for when I'm falling.  
I need her.

I close the distance between us, my chest heaving, and I glance ahead to discover that she is gone.  
Long disappeared with the current.  
Carried away by the ripples.  
Riding the waves to the unknown.  
Leaving me to drown in darkness as I gasp for the air that isn't there and crane my neck to listen for the music I cannot hear while clawing for the hand of a ghost.

* * *

**Thanks for the reviews everyone!  
Hope you guys liked this chapter, let me know your thoughts if you can, always greatly appreciate the amazingly wonderful feedback!**

**And to BEASbeth: well I guess that's the beauty of it; you get to say whatever you want:) Though any feedback is appreciated, whether constructive or positive:) I am always working to improve as I writer.**

**More to come soon, stay tuned!  
-birdywings**


	27. Chapter 26: Mending The Walls

**Thank you so much for the reviews everyone!  
****Never in my short time as a member of fanfiction . net did I imagine this story would receive 94 reviews!  
****I really want to take the time and thank everyone who has made this amazing wonder happen! Thank you all! You have made every minute of my experience writing this story absolutely unforgettable and I am so thankful for every one of my followers, favorites, readers and especially to my wonderful reviewers!**

**Hope this chapter is to everyone's liking and do let me know your thoughts:) I adore every one of your words!**

**More to come!**

**-birdywings**

* * *

26

Mending The Walls

* * *

Elsa

The world is quiet in the thick of night.  
All life is silent as everything sinks into the darkness of sleep.  
As they drown in the illusions of the mind that take a life of their own from the shadows of dusk.

My arms hug my torso while my hands slide along the silky sleeves of my gown, rubbing the warmth into my skin.  
I gaze up at the night-sky, craning my neck to watch the navy bleed into the black curtain stretching over me, and I soon find myself lost to the glittering stars dotting paths through the shadows hanging over me as the moon illuminates my pat ahead. But yet, I do not possess the vision to see through the fog wafting through my long, winding road before me.

I have waited weeks that have felt like ages to be visible to the world.  
To be seen through somebody's eyes.  
To be heard as they absorb my words.  
To be cradled in someone's arms as they hold me against their beating heart.  
To have more than only the Man in The Moon for company.

He has not uttered a word since I awoke in the ice cold lake.  
I will whisper my pleas for a sign of why I am here to him day and night, but receive no answer.  
And I'm not holding my breath anytime soon.

But _he_ saw me.  
I know he did.  
I could see it in his icy orbs when the blue in mine met his.  
A boy, who looked just as, if not, more lost and alone as I feel.  
He was a boy, yet not a boy.

No one has eyes that blue. A color so rich you become absorbed and lost to them.  
Or hair that white. A shade so pale it is radiant but yet, not hard to stare at.  
Or skin so pale that the tone of it casts a glow around the figure.  
And certainly no one can stride clean through another person.

Who is he, and how does he know my name?

I shiver as the cool evening breeze nips at the skin revealed from my bare shoulders.  
I hug my midsection, giving the soft skin a squeeze as I try to curl up inside myself, creating a source of warmth from deep within the blood coursing through my veins.  
But I am not warm.  
Not the way a person should be.

I am a specter.  
A phantom of season.  
Neither living nor dead.  
I am nothing but the whisper in the wind.

I feel my teeth dig into my lip as my eyes trail up the thick blanket of snow lying upon the ground beneath me before coming to gaze upon the grand structure made entirely of ice before me.  
My lips part in awe at the magnificent creation as the rays of morning light slice through the dense clouds fluffy with white in the early hours of dawn that now begin to descend upon the land, stretching across the town as it illuminates everything in its path as the ice structure reflects the glare.

I don't know how I come across this beautiful and seemingly abandoned establishment.  
All I know is that I am somehow inexplicably drawn to this wondrous creation, as if an invisible string has coiled itself around us, linking us together as it slowly winds us in.  
My arms hug my torso firmly, and I climb the last leg to the entrance.

The surface is smooth and cool to the touch, and the feeling of the ice against my skin just seems to feel right.  
I smile as a contented sigh escapes my lips, releasing a cloud of my breath into the air as I relish the refreshing and almost dizzying sensation of lying my palm flat on the ice, and somehow, I just know.  
Almost as if this masterpiece is apart of me.

My heels click against the glossy floor as I sweep through the interior, mesmerized and transfixed by every little detail etched into the walls and floors.  
A fountain with frozen water spouting from the top greets me in the foyer, and after circling it once or twice as I study the intricate snowflake patterns decorating the rim, I take my leave up the glassy staircase, taking each step with ease as I make my way swiftly up to the second floor with my transparent snowflake patterned cape floating behind me.

Never have I ever felt more at home.  
Almost as if I have been here before.  
But almost as if in a dream.

I am somewhat shaken and confused as to find what I discover in what appears to have once been a bedroom on the second floor.  
A bed also made of ice sits on the left side of the space with a balcony jutting out opposite me while a chandelier glimmering with countless little ice crystals dangles from the ceiling above me, or at least what is left of it, as the clear, clean-cut pieces gather the sunlight streaming in through the balcony doors, which remain wide open, allowing the tunes of life to fill the eerie silence drifting through the air.

The sight would be beautiful and touching if not for the menacing and frightening jagged icicles protruding from the slick floor and erupting from the smooth walls while they glow this deep, sinister red beneath layers upon layers of ice and in between the gaping cracks slithering up the walls.  
I clutch a hand to my chest, my feet sliding along the ice below as I unconsciously step back, backing away from the scene.  
Away from the chaos.

But something draws me back from deep inside myself.  
The force yanking me back from the edge before I can lose myself to the abyss.

My hand falls to my side as I near the sight, my heels filling the silence around me.  
With trembling hands and a shaky breath, I extend my hands in front of me as ice spirals from my fingertips.  
A smile tugs at my lips as I drink in the electricity surging within me when the ice courses through my body and seeps from my skin as I work to mend the walls, my ice gliding up the glassy surface and filling in the cracks as the deep red drains from the blue, leaving the ice clear of all traces of whatever occurred here.  
I watch the icicles recede into the ice under me, the sharp tips melting into the thick ice I stand on.

Pain melts.  
Fear drains.  
Walls mend.  
I feel as if I am building myself anew as I repair the damage around me.

"Well done." A hollow voice echoes from behind me.

My extended arms freeze in midair, my body growing tense as I suck in a breath and don't dare to release it.

My ears throb with the applause that follows the voice from the unknown presence, each clap of its palms sending a shiver not only to ooze into my skin, but through the thin air as well, and I have to refrain from shuddering as I feel every hair rise on the nape of my neck.

"I have to say Elsa," The sound of my name through that voice sets my teeth on edge, and I have to clench my jaw to prevent them from chattering at the sudden chill pricking at my body. "I honestly didn't think you would still have it in you."

_That voice._  
_I know I've heard it before._

"But I suppose,"

_From a dream._

"With every fresh snowflake,"

_From a nightmare._

"There is a chance for a fresh beginning."

_From a memory._


	28. Chapter 27: Black & Blue

**Hello everyone!**

**Thank you so much for the incredible reviews! I cannot believe we're almost at 100! Not once did I imagine that this story would receive the response it has!  
Thank you! All of you! Everyone! Just thank you!**

**I probably should have mentioned this earlier and it really saddens me to deliver this news to you guys, but we are unfortunately nearing the end of this story:,( Can you guys believe that?! I sure as heck can't. God I don't want this to end! This story has been both an amazing pleasure and absolute blast to write and it's all thanks to you wonderful readers, followers, favorites, and ESPECIALLY to you incredible reviewers! But alas my dear readers, we have only four more chapters to go, (including this one).**

**I want to express my gratitude further to all of you amazing fans but I will go on forever. So I promise to save my long sappy, acknowledgment speech for my final chapter:)  
**

**In the meantime, please enjoy this chapter and do let me know your thoughts:) Feedback is always greatly appreciated!**

**And to the lovely ChapterScript: When I had first heard of Jack and Elsa as a couple, I didn't pay much mind to it. But after reading several amazing fanfiction stories about them, (all of which I will be listing out with my long sappy, acknowledgment speech), taking a look at some incredible fan art of them and even sketching some myself, I was inspired to put my own little story for them together.  
Youtube crossover videos have also heavily influenced this story. In fact, I would have to say that the Elsa and Jack Frost-Say Something video by toufinus is the major inspiration for the scenes I used in my story. So please, go take a look at that awesome video:)**

**Okay everyone, without further ado, here's chapter 27 and I hope you all enjoy!**

**-birdywings**

* * *

27

Black &amp; Blue

* * *

Jack

Blue.  
That is all I see.  
All that paints across my vision until I can't see anything else.  
And I'm not sure I want to.

* * *

Jack

My eyelids lift to reveal a space illuminated by the warm glow of a fire that crackles in the corner, sending sparks into the air and to sizzle against the stones that build the hearth around it, keeping the flames contained.  
I blink a few times, the blue patching my vision as it melts away, to adjust to the dim lighting as I scan my surroundings.

The stone walls around me are dotted with the flickering ember flares of candles as they wave with the air, their forms bending and weaving with the flow. My eyes trail down the smooth surface as stone dissolves into hardwood, the material glossy with the glow of the flames. A large window dominates the opposite wall, its curtains drawn, allowing only a sliver of daylight to leak into the room at the foot of the glass and through the crack in the space between the two drapes, giving me just enough light to distinguish the legs and edges of the desk that sits in the center of the room, its surface littered with tools for creating and parts and pieces of creations that have yet to be made.

I'm at the North Pole.  
In Santa's workshop.  
In North's domain.

I push against the soft quilt I sit on, the patches crisscrossed by the greens and reds that slither across the fabric, and onto my feet, teetering for only a moment as I balance on the floor beneath me, my body still heavy with sleep.  
I locate my staff propped against the stone where the two walls meet before taking the two wavering steps I need to close my fingers around the thin middle, the wood rough against my palm. Yet I grin, drinking in the familiarity of caressing the object in my hand, because at the moment, it feels like the only familiar thing I can bring to mind.

_How did I come to be here?_

I cross the room, my gait clumsy and groggy, and reach the the set of double-doors that separates me from life beyond these walls with effort. I inhale deeply before shoving them open, revealing to me the lively motion of North's creations at work as yetis hustle throughout the workshop, their arms loaded with a bundle of tools to be put into use or toys to be packed away for the children scattered around the world. Elves scurry across the floor, chasing each other with paintbrushes tipped with green or hiding out in corners where they dare one another to thrust their fingers into defective electrical outlets.

I smirk at them, laughter bubbling within me as I launch into the air in pursuit of North with questions that require answers.

I find him in the heart of the workshop, where the globe glitters with the lights of all the believers that dot the world like the paths of stars in the night.  
He is surrounded by my fellow guardians, my view of him obscured by their figures, but I can just spot his 'Naughty' and 'Nice' tattoos peeking out from under his sleeves as he whispers to the group around him, his tone hushed and just radiating tension, with Sandy by his side, who's brow is furrowed in thought as a question mark hovers above his golden crown while Bunnymund leans against the wall with his arms folded as he tosses one of his boomerangs into the air and catches it repeatedly without effort, his features fixed into a frown, with Toothania hovering over the floor, her expression difficult to read as she stares intently at North, absorbing the words that are silent to me as they pass through his lips.

Moments tick by before anyone becomes aware of my presence, and when they do, the circle immediately parts, the hushed conversation dissolving into silence as their features relax into false smiles.  
It is North who finally breaks the thick silence hanging in the air and closing in around us.

"Ah, Jack, you're awake!" He shuffles past the other guardians and claps me on the back with one of his brawny hands, his palm dominating my shoulder blade as I refrain from cringing a little at the force. "Good to have you back." He tells me.

I grin a little. "Good to be back," Then pause, my words hanging in the air as my eyebrows knit in confusion. "Where have I been exactly?" I ask, catching sight of an elf stumbling around below us with its head jammed into a miniature trumpet.

Silence.  
That is what they answer my words with.  
Hot, thick, heavy silence.

North purses his lips.  
Bunny's mouth forms an 'O' as he begins to whistle, the tune emerging from deep within him.  
Sandy's eyes shift to the floor and remain there, the golden rings in his orbs moving as they study the cracks between the wooden planks.  
Tooth's eyes dart everywhere but toward me as her wings flutter nervously behind her.  
I catch Baby Tooth's eye, and she seems to be the only one telling me anything, yet no words pass between us.

"I said," I say, my tone tense and a little irritated, when the silence has become unbearable. "Where. Have. I. Been. Exactly?"

The words come out more aggressive than I mean to, but it's too late to bite them back, and so I leave them suspended between us.

Tooth swoops to my side, her hand finding its way to my shoulder as the words come spewing from her lips. "Oh Jack, we're all thrilled that you're alright!" She says, before enveloping me in a hug while Baby Tooth plants a peck on my cheek.

"Well, some of us are." Bunny grunts from his corner without glancing my way. But despite his words, I can detect even the smallest hint of relief in his tone and I have to smile.

Everyone then begins to file around me, clapping me on the back or enveloping me in an embrace as they tell me that they're glad to see me again until I break the chain.

"Okay," I say. "But that doesn't answer my question."

A brief moment of silence follows and I'm about to speak up again when Tooth handles it for me.

"We found you Jack," She tells me, her voice gentle as her hand grips my shoulder tighter with her every word. "You were missing for days and we found you."

"Where?" I demand. "Where was I?"

"Just off the border of Norway and Sweden," Bunny grumbles. "In a little town called 'Arendelle'."

My breathing ceases.  
Time comes to a halt.  
Everything around me folds in upon itself as I remember.

I remember her.  
I saw her.  
Elsa.

I remember flying to Arrendelle and visiting the last place I saw her before she melted from my world.  
I remember wandering the streets we tread together as the specters we were, where the memories appeared at every corner.  
I remember finding her in the midst of the ocean, bobbing above everyone else.  
I remember calling to her, my voice drowned out by the overlapping of waves and prevented from ever reaching her.  
I remember losing her to the waves.  
I remember stumbling away from it all for longer than I could register before finally collapsing in the snow with my last sight for days being of the distant stars burning fiercely above me.  
I remember.

"Elsa..." Her name rolls off my tongue without my meaning to, and I find myself relishing the exhilarating sensation of hearing it again. Still as pure and untouchable as ever.

Five heads turn in my direction, (including Baby Tooth).  
Five pairs of eyes boring through me as if I have just jumped off the deep end, thus plunging myself into a bottomless pit of darkness, and I don't care.  
I don't care.  
I don't care.

She is alive.  
Elsa is alive.  
I have to find her.

"Elsa's alive," I say without thinking. "Elsa's alive and we have to find her."

I peel Tooth's hand off my shoulder one finger at a time and push past the others toward the doors that hold my ticket out of here.

"_I_ have to find her." I say in a hushed tone, but clear enough that they can hear me as my hand encloses around the cool handle before twisting the door to reveal the world beyond these wooden walls and glass windows.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold the fruitcake," North speaks as he reaches past me and slams the door closed, cutting me off from the howling wind and snow-covered ground that lies outside. "You're not going anywhere until you do some explaining Jack."

He locks the latch into place before turning his gaze on me, his eyes glinting as they search deep within me for answers.  
I don't give him any.

"Who is this Elsa?" He prods.

The other guardians gather around, closing in around us, and I suddenly can't find any air.

"It doesn't matter," I wave him off. "We're wasting time. We have to find her." I say as sternly as I can, which is fairly difficult to do with Santa Claus giving you a stare so hard you feel as if his eyes will set you ablaze from the inside or melt you into a puddle. Or maybe both.

"Jack," Tooth breathes gently. "Who is she?"

I expect the anger to rise within me.  
I wait for the irritation to spill from my lips.  
I anticipate the frustration to reveal itself in the ice that I imagine to seep from my skin.  
But it never comes.

Instead, she does.  
The story we wrote.  
The freedom we found.  
The fun we had.  
The love we shared.  
It all comes spilling out.

I eventually abandon the doors and perch myself atop the railing that trails along the staircase lining the floors as they ascend higher than I can see.  
I feel a smile forming in my features when I speak of the fun we created together.  
I feel the adrenaline beating through my heart in my chest when I tell them of the freedom we found in each other.  
I feel the blush in my cheeks as the color seeps into my skin when I whisper the brief outline of the love we shared.  
I feel the anger course through my veins as my hands clench into my fists when I utter the visit from Pitch through gritted teeth.  
I feel the sting in my eyes from the tears that threaten to emerge when I voice the conclusion of her days.

Brick by brick, the walls come tumbling down, collapsing over me.  
The words hold a lifetime of memories, yet only a moment of them spent.  
A breath of happiness.  
An eternity of torture.

"I never spoke of her to anyone," I finish with as I become conscious of the weight that has planted in my palm, and I glance down to discover an iced flower cradled in my hand, the glaze cool against my skin. I smile, now realizing just how much she reveals herself when I least expect it. "Not even to Jamie."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, and you fell completely and hopelessly in love with her. Can we get on with this mate?" Bunny snaps, but I catch the slightest trace water glistening in his glassy green eyes as tears pool in them.  
I smirk at him. He glares at me.  
I smirk again. He grunts and shifts his gaze.

"But Jack, I thought Jamie was your first believer." Tooth speaks, her expression puzzled.

I shake my head. "No. She was. Elsa was the first."

We all stand around, shifting our weight from foot to foot as we absorb my words through the awkward silence.

"We have to find her," I tell them. "Before Pitch does." My tone hardens, my features darkening at his name.

"Jack... Are you positive it was her? That you really saw your Elsa?" North asks, his tone cautious as if he thinks he's crossing a line. He could never be more correct.

"I know who I saw! I saw her! I know I did, and every minute you all waste digging for evidence of her, is another minute that Pitch spends looking for her!" I can feel the ice pulsing through me now as I grip my staff, my knuckles growing a shade paler.

All eyes leave mine as they study the floor at their feet with low heads.  
All except two.

"Okay," Tooth says, floating over to me. "We'll find her," Her hand skims my arm until her fingers lace with mine, our palms meeting as she gives me a small, yet confident nod of her head. "Together."

"Alright then," North says, surfacing from his swimming thoughts as he clasps his hands together. "Whatever you need us to do, we'll do it."

I nod at him. "Okay, well, first we'll need her teeth."

"Teeth?" Bunny questions.

I roll my eyes. "Yes Bunny, her teeth. Tooth, you must have them somewhere right?"

Her teeth dig into her lip as her eyebrows knit in thought. "It's, possible... But why do you ask?"

"Because I have this feeling she no longer possesses any memories of her life as a human just like I did. So, we'll have to divide; two of us will search for her teeth at Tooth's palace while the other three search for her."

"Feeling you say?" North asks, eyes twinkling.

I grin. "Yes, feeling. In my belly." I say, placing my hands on my torso and jiggling the soft flesh of my stomach.

North laughs, tossing his head back as the sound echoes within his body, causing his round belly to ripple. "Alright Jack, Tooth and I go to palace and search for teeth while you, Bunny and Sandy find your Elsa."

Sandy gives me two thumbs up and I return the gesture when I hear a groan escape Bunny at the edge of the room. "First we have to set out on a wild goose chase for a figment of Frost's imagination, now I'm stuck with him?" He complains.

I smirk, unable to fight the tug in my lips. "Aw come on Bunnymund, you know you love me. Kind of like how you'll always be my favorite kangaroo."

His green eyes flash at me, his nostrils flaring as his tail whips to the rhythm his foot taps at against the floor, and he's about to respond when North interjects. "Just be glad you no ride in sled Bunny."

I stifle a laugh as we prepare to disperse when a trumpet blares throughout the room, and I have to cover my ears at the sound, watching as my staff clatters to the floor, but I barely hear it. My eyes dart around the room to find Sandy standing in a corner with an elf in hand, who holds the miniature trumpet that Sandy presses to his lips as he blows into the spout.  
The racket ceases once all attention is focused on Sandy, who then tosses the elf to the floor at his feet and directs our gazes with a golden finger to the opening in the ceiling above us, where the moon shines brightly against the blue dome slanting over us.

"Manny!" North exclaims, extending his arms out to The Man in The Moon. "Don't get me wrong old friend, we love you, but now not best time."

The moon answers North with silence and only the beam of light that pours in through the wide, gaping opening above us as it shines down upon the diamond of tiles positioned in the center of the room. Each tile is etched with an image that represents every guardian as they surround a single circular tile marked with a 'G' at the core of the formation, where a pedestal with a single crystallized stone emerges from the dark opening in the floor.

I almost choke on the gasp that catches in my throat, and we all watch with tense shoulders and our breaths held as a figure takes shape from the blue, transparent stone sprouting from deep within the floor before us.

No one breathes.  
No one speaks.  
And I can't even imagine that anyone is able to think at the moment as we all slowly attempt to process the figure materializing before us.

North is the one to break the stunned silence.

"The Snow Queen."

* * *

Elsa

Darkness.  
That is all I see.  
All that stains my vision until I can't see anything more.

A chill weaves through the space.  
The frigid air numbing my thoughts and sending shivers through me.  
It pricks at my skin and stings at my eyes until I can't feel anything else.  
Except the cold that surrounds and envelops me.

I hear not the howl in the wind.  
Or the echoes of hushed voices.  
Not even the silence that normally occurs before the darkness consumes you.  
I hear only the frightened cries of children slicing through the pitch blackness.  
I cringe as their miserable wails enter my thoughts and clutter my mind.

Yet, through all the darkness.  
Through all the cold.  
Through all the pain and misery.  
Through all the fear.  
There remains to be one thought left untouched by the shadows.

One thought that echoes through my mind.  
One thought that surfaces from the scattered chaos raging within the walls of my head.  
One thought that gives me hope through the silhouettes that claw at me, trying to drag me down into inescapable darkness.

This one, pure thought pulses through my mind even as it leaves my lips.

"Jack."

* * *

**P.S. Am I ever going to see my regular reviewers again? Where are you guys at? I miss you all:( I loved reading your words and I really hope you all return when you can!:)**


	29. Chapter 28: To Fly

**OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY HOLY FLIPPING FREAKING GOD!  
****104 REVIEWS!? YOU GUYS! I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO SAY! OHMYGOD! THANK YOU ALL SO FLIPPING MUCH! YOUR WORDS MEAN THE ABSOLUTE FREAKING WORLD TO ME! GOD, I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO SAY! JUST THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH!**

**Okay, so I wasn't going to mention this until I posted my final chapter to this story, but after receiving every one of your incredible reviews on my last chapter, I think I owe you all this much so here it is; DA! DA! DA! (drum roll please), I HAVE A SEQUEL PLANNED FOR THIS STORY! :D  
I do not yet know what the title will be, but I do have my main plot for the story, although I am still smoothing out a few rough edges here and there. You guys have no idea how excited I am to begin writing this! (which I do not yet know when that will be), but I will most likely have a better idea of when I will start by the end of this story:) Anyway, yeah, I am super excited and I sincerely hope that all you amazing favorites, followers and reviewers that have accompanied me on this story's journey will join me on my next installment to the Jack and Elsa fandom! I just cannot get enough of our favorite frosty couple! I'm fairly certain I have an extremely unhealthy addictionXD**

**Anyhow, I really hope you all enjoy this chapter that I had a ton of fun writing just as I do with every one of them!;)  
Let me know your thoughts if you can, and do know that your words really helped shape this story and make me the writer I am now all thanks to you wonderful reviewers!:)**

**-birdywings**

* * *

28

To Fly

* * *

Jack

In one hand, my fingers skim along the rough material of my staff, wrapping around the bark as they caress the thin middle.  
In my other hand, a snow globe dominates my palm, the cool, round surface cradled in my palm as it sits nestled against my pale skin.

"I still say my tunnels would be faster." Bunny mumbles from behind me.

I turn to face him, smirking as I reply with, "North's right, be glad you're not riding in the sleigh."

He grunts, and without another word, I toss the globe to the floor where it erupts into a flurry of sparks at the contact, revealing to me a disoriented image of my desired destination.  
I grin and leap into the portal, plunging myself into a world of color as my surroundings melt into one another.  
Greens melt into blues, blues bleed into purples, purples merge into pinks until finally a clear blue cuts through the sky above me, and I follow the color with my eyes as it stretches over me and leaks into the distance against the halo of sunlight that shines across the land as it dips into the horizon.

Snow-peaked mountains take shape around me, their crests rising up from the earth and cutting through the sky. I wriggle my toes into the damp ground, digging them into the soft snow at my feet as the white glistens in the early morning light.  
My eyes strain against the glare of the sun as it bathes the land in its brilliant glow with the slick, glossy surface of the ice palace reflecting the light as it sprouts from the earth and towers high above our heads as a halo of sunlight outlines its form.

"Crikey!" Bunny groans. "It's freezing here!"

I turn to him with a retort hanging on the edge of my lips when Sandy weaves his dust, producing a pair of earmuffs in his palms, and I watch, rather amused as he offers the item to Bunny who waves it away with a grunt.  
I shake my head, grinning as we make our trek up the mountainside, en route to the ice palace, which remains untouched and undisturbed as it casts a shadows over us.  
I pause at the entrance, my feet refusing to budge under the gaze of the set of double-doors that await entry.  
The last time I was here, was the day she faded from my world.  
How can I unlock the door I have tried so hard to shut after all these years so easily?

"You planning on opening those doors anytime soon Frost? Don't mind me, it's not like I'm not freezing our tails off back here." Bunny mutters, luring me out of my daze.

My eyelids draw closed, and with one final deep breath, I shove the cool doors open with a creak that echoes through the space, rattling the icy walls.  
The deep red has drained from the walls, leaving only the blue to fill the ice. The sharp, jagged icicles have melted back into the floor, leaving it smooth and slick once more. The cracks that had lined the walls and cut through the blue have been repaired, the gaps they created now smoothed over and mended.  
A smile finds its way to my lips.  
She has remarkable talent hidden in those hands. Beneath her skin. Streaming though her veins. Pulsing through her every fibre.  
She is alive and she is mending.  
She is searching, and she is finding.

A spine-chilling scream pierces the silence and pulses through the hallowed halls.  
Bunny and Sandy's hands clamp over their ears as they cringe away from the shriek.  
But I can't move.  
Not even to tune out this blood-curdling sound that my ears throb with and have never been acquainted with before.

That sound.  
That voice.

Frightened and scared.  
Broken and shattered.

She is fading.  
Falling.  
Losing.  
But will never be lost.

My hands grip my stave, the bark rough under my skin, as I kick from the ice and drive myself toward the second floor, where her cries call to me from as her voice pounds in my ears.  
_  
_

The space is dark with the shadows that dance along the walls and cold with the aura of fear whispering in the air.  
I find her in the center of it all, her frame shrouded in a puddle of darkness where she drowns under the weight of it with her knees drawn into her chest and her head buried deep in her skirts, shielding her tear-stained face from me.  
They reach out for her, their dark talons tugging at her skirts, brushing against her pale skin and weaving their claws into her thick braid as they seep into her mind, clouding her thoughts with their gloom and shrieks of frightened children.  
I can just detect their cries. The sound inhuman and jarring.

"Elsa."

* * *

Elsa

Darkness.  
That is all I am left with.

It encroaches my vision, boiling at the edges.  
It surrounds my body, swallowing and consuming me as it pulls me under.

Cold.  
That is all I feel.  
In the very pit of my heart.

My body is numb with it.  
My mind swimming with its scattered thoughts.

I am somewhere else.  
Lost to the shadows that scrape at me.  
That tug at me, clawing for my soul.  
Digging for whatever light may still remain flickering within me.

I hug my knees to my chest, trying to fold up within myself the way a flower does when dusk casts upon it, as I wither away one petal at a time.  
I am wavering.  
Sinking.  
Drowning.  
Fading.  
Falling.

There is nothing left to save.

* * *

Jack

"Elsa." I breathe when the words find me.

I take a quiet, wary step forward causing shards of ice to crack beneath me.

"Elsa," I whisper to her, my voice cracking and breaking with desperation. "Elsa, listen to me."

"I'm a monster. I'm a monster. I'm a monster." Her sobs fill the gap between us, her shattered voice piercing my heart, causing me to grimace at the sound as her tears cascade down her cheeks, the salty water staining the blue in her dress a shade darker.

"Elsa. Elsa, listen to me. Hear my voice. Hear me. Elsa." _Please. Please hear me._

I close the distance between us, my bare feet sliding on the ice as I draw near her and reach a hand out to touch her shoulder.

"Please."

"She can't hear you Frost."

I freeze.  
My teeth dig into my lip until I taste blood.  
My hands form into fists at my sides.  
My blood runs cold.

A cackle hollow with the cold slices through the air, sending shivers down my spine. I remain frozen into place, refusing to even shudder at the sharp nip in my skin, which is crawling with the cold wafting through the room.

"She can't even see you anymore."

I raise my staff, aiming the tip at the cloud of silhouettes that begins to devour the space around me, taking the ice and us with it as its talons outstretch toward us, their long, thin fingers lingering at my feet. But instead of drawing back, I step into the black, my feet becoming lost to the darkness around me as I draw nearer to Elsa.

Pitch's chuckle rings throughout the space, filling the blackness as the sound rattles my mind. I give my head a shake, clearing my senses as Pitch materializes at Elsa's side, his pale skin making his figure difficult to distinguish against the silhouettes that surround him, leaving only his golden orbs to stare back at me as they float there in the blackness.

He entwines a finger with a loose string of Elsa's blonde hair and a shudder runs through me as I direct my staff at him. "If you so much as touch her Pitch," I growl through gritted teeth. "I swear I'll-"

"You'll what?" He challenges, his voice calm and cool.  
He chuckles again as his frail fingers come into contact with her skin and trail down her cheek.

"Incredible isn't it?" He speaks. "How easily corrupted the will of a soul is by even the smallest quantity of fear. The simple process will never cease to astound me."

My eyes narrow, causing my view of him to shrink as I try to search for the voice within me, but I come up empty-handed.

He chuckles again, the sound sending tremors through my body and deep into my bones.  
"It's over Frost. The sooner you and your fellow guardians along with your precious little pathetic believers accept that, the easier it will be to succumb to the power of the pitch blackness that will swallow the only light you shall ever see again."

I am trembling, my every limb shaking with anger, yet, I still manage to find the words. "Elsa, listen to me."

"She cannot hear you Jack," He spits, as if the words hold a bitter taste to his tongue. "She is gone. Long faded with the shadows just as you and all those you care for will be with time."

I fly at him, my instincts taking over as all rationality I possess dissolves into an ocean full of dismantled thoughts, leaving their remains scattered and disrepair as they float out at sea.  
Ice bursts from the tip of my staff only to erupt into a flurry of sparks as it collides with a barricade of shadows that Pitch summons up from the floor.

"You cannot win Frost. I know what you fear most. I can see it growing in your eyes. I can feel it wafting through the air. I can hear it pulsing in your thoughts."

I lunge at him, sending blasts of ice his way, all of which he dodges easily as he dissolves into the shadows at his feet, leaving me alone in the dark.

"I know you fear that your efforts to protect the children of the world will waver and end with your failure." He chirps, his voice echoing through the darkness and from all angles.  
I spin in a circle, my eyes scanning frantically for his piercing golden strips.

"I know that you fear losing your precious little Snow Queen. You fear letting her slip through your fingers again." I feel his cool touch brush against my shoulder and I whirl around as the ice shoots from the end of my stave, sending the advance to soar into the ceaseless black as it misses him by a solid few inches.

"But most of all," He says, his voice singing with glee. "I know that deep down, you fear losing all of your believers. That you will once again become the ghost roaming the earth among its inhabitants in plain sight with not a soul with the vision to see, or the ears to detect, or even the hands to feel you."

"You don't know anything!" I shout, my lungs screaming with frustration as I send another blast of ice into the darkened void.

He only chuckles in reply. "Oh, but I do Jack. I know everything."

He melts into the shadows, his gold orbs fading into the darkness.  
I whirl around, my ears straining as they listen for his next advance, for the eerie silence that accompanies him as well as the frightened cries of children that follow.  
But all is quiet through the darkness.

All is silent with the cold and dark until, "Jack."

I spin on my heels, my feet slipping on the ice that is hidden from my feet as I run to her, toward her voice. Only to be struck from the left by a wave of demon stallions, my vision obscured by the colors that blotch my vision from the blow and, as I blink the green, blues and purples away, the vibrant colors are replaced by the golden rings that paint the stallion's eyes.  
I snatch my staff, scrambling to escape their field of attack when a single sound slices through the silence, the source hidden by the darkness, and suddenly, the light returns and leaks into the room through the palace walls as the moon settles in between the snow-topped mountain peaks in the distance.

The cluster of stallions standing over me with their nostrils flaring dissolve into the air, their black sand disintegrating into ash as it is swept away by the light bathing the room in its glow.  
My eyes dart through the dim moonlight to find Sandy and Bunny standing in the entryway, Bunny with a boomerang in hand and a snarl plastered to his features as he glares at Pitch.

"You alright mate?" He asks me without averting his eyes from Pitch, who stands at the edge of the room.

I can't help the grin that spreads in my features. "Just perfect, but you know, it wouldn't have hurt to arrive a little sooner." I say with a shrug.

"Well, we're here now." He scoffs, his nose twitching.

I climb to my feet and draw nearer to Pitch, my staff raised and held firmly in my hands, preparing for whatever he dares to throw our way.  
He chuckles, the sound still icy and cold but wavering a little as his golden strips register what he's up against.

"Alright mate," Bunny says, his voice firm. "We can do this the easy way or the hard way, and I don't know about you but I think Sandy here is leaning towards the hard way." He says, nodding over to Sandy, who stands at his side with his right hand balled into a fist as his pounds his knuckles into his left palm.

A chuckles rattles Pitch's body, causing his shoulders to shake and his dark robes to swirl at his feet. "You all have no idea who you're dealing with."

"No mate, it's you who hasn't any idea."  
Boomerangs fly from Bunny's paws as he takes off bounding throughout the room, his paws padding against the slick walls as he gains speed.

I dig my staff into the floor, summoning a force of wind that catches Pitch and sends him sailing through the air, his limbs flailing as his hands search for something to anchor him into place.  
He lands in a corner with a thud and manages to push himself to his feet only to be knocked to his knees again as Bunny runs into him, his fist coming into contact with Pitch's jaw.  
He sweeps across the room and rises to his feet with a groan before melting into a pool of shadows through the floor.

We scour the room for him, but find that all darkness has drained from the ice, leaving the blue to fill the walls around us.  
Another scream comes from behind me and I turn to see Elsa kneeling on the ice with her hands pressed to her temple as her nails dig deep into her skin.  
I rush to her side, my feet slipping on the ice as my fingers pry at her hands, drawing them away from her face to reveal to me her tear-stained face, which is drained of all color.

"Elsa. Elsa, look at me." I breathe, the weight heavy upon my chest as I struggle to find my voice.  
But her eyes remain closed, her features twisting into a grimace as she cringes away from the darkness playing out beneath that curtain.

"Elsa. Elsa, listen to me. Hear me. Elsa."

Her eyes flick open, revealing the familiar black pits they were the day she melted from my world.  
Her hands close around my wrists, her nails digging into my skin and I have to grit my teeth from crying out.

"I'm a monster!" She gasps, her eyes wide and endless.

I shake my head at her. "No Elsa, you're not a monster. You're a bird, a bird spreading its wings and just learning to fly, you hear me?" I take her by the shoulders, shaking her slightly, trying to rid her of the darkness that works to drown her.

"I'm a monster!"  
With those words, a gust of wind sweeps through the room, taking Bunny, Sandy and me with it.

I'm tossed through the air, my limbs flailing as my hands claw for something to grab hold of.  
My fingers close around the door hinge, my nails scraping at the ice as my eyes follow Bunny and Sandy who sail through the door, their shouts lost to the howling wind as they're tossed down the glossy staircase.

I grit my teeth, my eyes narrowing as the wind stings at my face.  
With my staff grasped tightly in my hand, I dig the tip into the floor below and use it to anchor me to the ground as I tow myself back to her.

_I have to reach her.  
__I have to._

My eyes fall shut, showing me the shadows beneath the curtain as I pull myself the rest of the way, my muscles aching and numb from the exertion.  
I plant my knees on the ground as I settle before her, the wind pinching my skin as I caress her face in my palms, her skin cool against mine.  
Her head lolls back on her neck as if she is fading, losing to the darkness.

But she will not drown.  
She will not drown.

"Elsa, you are strong, you can fight it! You hear me? Break free!" Her head lolls back again, hanging loose upon her shoulders and I'm suddenly not so certain she can hear me anymore.

_Don't fall Elsa.  
__You hear me?  
__Don't you dare fall._

* * *

Elsa

I am drowning.

_"Elsa!"_

I am sinking.

_"Elsa!"_

I am fading.

_"Elsa!"_

I am wilting.

_"Elsa!"_

I am falling.

_"Elsa!"_

I am _flying._


	30. Chapter 29: Painting Blue

**Hello all!**

**Thank you all so much for your reviews on my last chapter!:)**

**To Axel1288 and HyperactiveGuest; I am sorry to hear that my story confuses you, I tend to have a nasty habit of speaking in a way I understand. It is a flaw as a writer that I must work on. However, if you both could tell me exactly what confuses you and how, I promise I will rewrite it to the best of my ability in a more understandable form for you and future readers. Thanks for you reviews!:)**

**To MissBaquero; I apologize, but I don't really understand what you are trying to say by putting Elsa and Jack as characters in this story... They are charactersXD But thank you so much for the review and amazing support! And as far as my updating goes, well, to be honest, my schedule is pretty irregular. But I try to update twice a week if possible. I plan to this week anyway as this story is coming to its conclusion soon:(  
As for the sequel, well, I don't want to reveal too much. If you want to PM me I can elaborate more in the message on the plotline etc. But I will however, say that it is likely to have a lot more action and humour than A Winter's Promise does;) I'm also still working to fit it all together.**

**Thank you everyone for your reviews and incredible support! I love reading every one of your words!  
Please enjoy this chapter and let me know your thoughts!**

**-birdywings**

* * *

29

Painting Blue

* * *

Elsa

"Elsa!"

He calls for me.  
His voice reaching out for me.

The sound of it both haunts and consoles me.  
It is both a chilling whisper in the winds of winter and a song.

"Elsa!"

It stirs from deep within him and plays from his lips as the melody breaks loose, setting it free to soar the winds far and wide.  
It is a voice broken with pain.  
Yet, painted with life.  
It holds within its melody, a story to tell.

It is a sad story.  
Painted with longing and loneliness.  
Yet written with fun, and within fun, the discovery of freedom.  
It is dark with danger and fear.  
But also colorful with life and hope.

It tickles my ears and echoes off the walls of my mind.  
It strums the strings of my soul and beats the rhythm of my heart.  
It flows through my veins and courses through my every fibre, its tune filling me with life.

I have heard this song before.

* * *

Jack

I slip and slide on the ice beneath me that is glassy with blue.  
My feet stumble to keep up with her, and I watch as our paths slowly weave in and out of each other, my footsteps falling into line with hers until our roads are intertwined as one.

Her name slips from my lips, the sound still as pure and as wonderful as the day I met her.  
She hears me. I know she does.  
She is in there, and she is alive.

"Stay back!" Her lips speak over her shoulder.

The words sting, and I falter in my footsteps for only a moment as I scramble after her with my voice clawing me from the inside to reach her.

I follow her to the balcony where I am struck with a force of wind that nips at my skin, and I halt in the doorway to catch my breath.  
My eyes follow her every movement; her feet as they sweep her away to the edge of the balcony, to the edge of the brink. But she won't fall.  
She will not fall.  
Of this, I am certain now.  
I notice her hands gripping the railing behind her, her fingers skimming the ice as she swivels to face me.

The sun rises in the distance, casting its ember rays of light to shine upon the land as it leaves the moon to dip and sink in between the snow-topped mountain peaks. But I barely notice.  
My eyes only register the ember as it gathers around Elsa's frame, outlining her body and giving light to her eyes even though the blue in them doesn't need assistance for that.

She is my whole world. All that I see is centered around her.  
I can't see anything else.  
I see only blue painted across my eyes and leaking at the edges.

She is the light I search for.  
The air I breathe.  
The music I listen for.  
The hand I reach for.

She is all that I see.

* * *

Elsa

He steps toward me, ice shards cracking beneath his feet as my eyes follow his every action.

In one hand, I hold the railing, my knuckles white with tension.  
In the other, I clutch my chest, trying to slow my racing heart.

He draws near me, his movements slow and patient. "Elsa." He breathes.

His eyes are glistening with blue. His skin glowing and radiant against the sunlight.  
His voice is gentle, searching and reaching. It fills me with its song, its words flowing into me as I absorb them and relish the feeling.  
I have heard it before.  
I have heard it before.

"Elsa." He whispers, his breath on my skin, sending shivers to crawl all up and down my skin.

But I am not cold.  
I am not cold.  
If anything, he makes me feel warm.

He reaches a pale hand up, his gentle fingers skimming the skin on my cheek, triggering a contented exhale to leave my lips.  
His touch is familiar.  
Light and smooth. Gentle and careful.  
It feel right. Natural.  
As if the pieces to a puzzle are coming together, forming the larger picture before my eyes.

I close my eyes, focusing on his palm as it caresses my cheek and supports my head.  
My chest warms, the heat rising from deep within me and spreading throughout my body. From the pit of my stomach, to the thoughts swimming through my head, to the tips of my fingers.  
I feel as if I have swallowed fire and it is warming me from the inside.

When the curtain lifts and my startling blue meets his piercing blue, I see that water has worked its way to his eyes, giving the blue a glassy touch, and I realize that I too am crying. Though for what reason I do not know.  
It seems as if my body is aware of my emotions before I am. It is alive, and it is awake. My every cell pulsating with energy.

I am alive.  
I am awake.

"Elsa."

My name leaves his lips and it sounds as if he has spoken it many times before, like it is a river lying upon his tongue, just waiting to spill from his lips.  
The sound of it rolling off his tongue reaches me and doesn't let go.  
I grasp for his voice, absorbing his every word, and cradle them in my palms, holding onto them.

I feel nothing.  
All that surrounds me dissolves into his palm as his gentle touch slides down my face and comes to rest on my cheek, his skin cool against mine.  
I am left under the glow of the rising sun with this boy and his hand closing the distance between us.

My skin tingles with his every touch as his gentle but firm palm draws my lips to his.  
My eyes draw closed, revealing to me the shadows beneath my eyelids, yet all I see are his blue eyes staring back at me.  
My surroundings evaporate, the whistling wind brushing my ears, the warm sun on my skin, the floor at my feet.  
I feel everything inside me melt yet grow with heat as I lose myself to his lips, the touch soft and warm, yet intense and electrifying all at once.

I drink him in.  
Absorbing his every touch.  
Focusing on his lips against mine.  
Feeling his skin on mine.  
I am alive. I am alive.

His lips leave mine, and I still see blue as I feel his cool touch trail down my cheek then down my neck, his every peck leaving a ghost of his lips on my skin.  
I feel him everywhere.

"Elsa." His voice whispers, drawing me back to him as my eyes open.

I see only blue.

* * *

Jack

My eyes linger on hers even as I take barely half a step back, my skin crawling to not release her.  
To hold onto her and never again let go.  
But I have to know something.  
I have to.

If I can't help her remember, than I can help her find herself.  
Her life, and all that she is.

A deep exhale leaves my lips as I extend my hand out in the small gap between us, my eyes finding hers as the words dive off the edge of my lips.

"Do you trust me?"

* * *

Elsa

"Do you trust me?"

My skin still crawls with his touch.  
My lips still cool from his.  
My ears straining as they listen for the melody in his voice, for the story it holds within it.  
My hands searching for his.  
My lungs clawing for the air we shared as we stood there, our lips locked, breathing in the same air.

He is all that I feel.  
All that I hear.  
All that I see.

I feel only a cool palm against mine as my fingers interlace with his.  
I hear only music playing in my mind as is surfs the winds.  
I see only blue.

It streaks my vision as my hand lifts, my palm finding his as my fingers slide into his.  
My lips move as I lose myself to his eyes, and the words reach me.

"I trust you."

* * *

**One more chapter guys:,(  
****I'm going to miss this story so much!:,( **

**I can't! Nope, I just... Nope! No no no. I can't do this:,(**

***Takes deep breath* Okay guys, hope you liked this chapter, let me know what you think!:)**


	31. Chapter 30: Freedom & Fun

**Hi everyone!**

**Thanks for the reviews, you are all just amazing!**

**Okay, last chapter guys:,(  
You ready? I'm not.**

**But here we go!**

* * *

Epilogue

Freedom &amp; Fun

* * *

Elsa

Blue.  
That is all I see.  
Even through the shadows lingering beneath the curtains drawn over my orbs, I see it all.  
The deep and vibrant color slathered across my vision, drawing me into a world of color past all the shadows to a place free from all darkness.

I focus on the breathing around me.  
On the rise and falls of chests as lungs inhale and exhale the air wafting through the room, slowly making its way across the earth.  
I breathe in through my nose to the point my chest grows numb, and then, I exhale, releasing all the tension in my body and thoughts floating through my mind in that one breath.  
I continue to do this even when my breaths have fallen into tune with the others, and it is like we are many lungs of the same body, everyone inhaling and exhaling together as we work as one.

I suddenly feel light.  
As if I am floating.  
Or maybe flying.  
Or maybe both.  
But I do know one thing, I am _free._

I feel the eyes around me.  
Their stares following me down this ceaseless road as the red bleeds out from beneath my feet, casting the carpet to lie upon the floor, the fabric soft under my heels.  
My skin is warm with their gazes, but instead of shrinking back beneath them, I grow taller, my body extending higher with each step I take as my skirts sweep the floor behind me.  
I no longer feel the hole deepening within the pit of my stomach as their eyes bore into me, digging beneath layer after layer of my skin as they search for my fears and the darkness they plant inside me.  
I no longer imagine their orbs as daggers pricking at my skin, draining me of all energy.  
Instead, I feel their gazes as hands. Several of them extending their palms out to me, lending me their strength to carry on down my path.  
Beneath the blue, I imagine my hands lifting, reaching for theirs as my palms fit into them and our fingers interlace, locking into place one at a time.

The curtains lift, freeing me from the shackles of the shadows, and instead of blinking, I allow the light to sting my eyes for a moment as the colors and faces come into focus before me.  
There is a short and stout little man, his figure glowing gold from head to toe as his golden eyes smile at me, deepening the richness in their color as the light shines in them, giving them the appearance of a firelight burning in the hearth.  
Beside him stands the bunny, his pink-tinted nose and cotton tail twitching as his green eyes train on me even while is fuzzy paw absentmindedly tosses a boomerang a few inches into the air before catching it again.  
Off to the other side hovers she, with the vibrant multicolored feathers dressing her form, their bristles fraying and thinning at the edges as she floats there, her wings fluttering with excitement as her violet eyes follow me.  
And in the center of the group, looking fierce and noble on the outside, yet caring and pulsating with the energy of a child beneath all those layers. He stands positioned at the end of this path among his fellow companions, each one awaiting my arrival.  
My words.  
My oath.

Each face has entirely different features, leaving only one similarity to show, if only one will look closely and search for what hides in those ancient orbs.  
Centuries of experience.  
Of years lived and lost.  
Of stories written and told until finally being lost to time.  
Each pair holds a lifetime of dreams, hopes, memories, wonders, fun, and even creeping in those faint but definite silhouetted corners, darkness.

And then there is him, the one who stands out from the rest.  
With the snowy-white hair and the icy blue eyes.  
He wears a grin in his features, revealing his gleaming white teeth smiling back at me.

His eyes hold a lifetime of stories I have yet to read.

They tell me I am a guardian.  
That I was chosen by the Man in The Moon himself to guide and protect the children of the world.  
They tell me I have a center.

I am certain of nothing in this world that is constantly in motion.

But then there is Jack Frost.  
Always waiting for me when I turn around.  
Smiling with all his teeth that are whiter than fresh-fallen snow.  
Searching and finding me as I lose myself and disappear into a world of blue.  
His lips fitting into mine and filling me with life as I melt from within when I least expect it.  
His hands tying themselves to mine and never letting go.

I feel him everywhere.  
I see him everywhere.  
I hear him everywhere.

I know who I am.  
I know where I fit.  
Where I belong.  
And that is with Jack.

We are like the pieces to a puzzle, and I know exactly how we fit;  
With his arms wrapping around my waist, pulling me into him our bodies press together as one.  
My hands snaking up his shoulders and resting on the nape of his neck, absorbing his cool skin when I draw his lips to mine and drink him in.

He is the light to my dark.  
The ice to my snow.  
The moon to my sun.  
The fun to my freedom.

I am Elsa.  
The Snow Queen.  
Guardian of Freedom.  
One of six protectors of the children of the world and their dreams, hopes, memories, wonder, fun and freedom.

How do I know this?

The moon told me so.  
It is all he has ever told me.  
It is all he has ever needed to tell me.

* * *

**Okay, prepare for the longest author's note in history.  
Ready?**

**So, I don't know how many of you actually read these acknowledgment notes at the end of books, (I suppose I must admit I skip over them most of the time too), but I truly hope you all read this one because I want every one of you to know how incredibly grateful I am to each and every one of you!**

**To my awesome followers: AmeliaSkellig, Assassin4343, Animagus7, AirelFirdy, 23Sunflowers, 4everfrozenlove, Beasbeth, .Shadowhunter, BlidgenBug, CalamityCollideWithTheDrugs, CrazyGirl.7, Darkwing.6, Chibistella, ChapterrScript, ExtremeJelsaNerd, FleurSuoh, FlowerPower645, Foxytail9, GodzillaMan1000, Gray Tanuki, Happypenguin177, Greysneakers14, Harbeth234, HenryTheWise, Ichisake, JamieHL, Jelsa Fan Mac, Jondsolar, Justine16, KagaFuTaxLia, Krisedge, LEXA14, Littlemissthunderbird, Loller, Looneybalooney, Lostblueheart16, LadyLiliaAnne, Mahiwaga no megumi, 4, MissAmazing03, MusesaMidnight, Pecabeth12-7, Potterfowlriorden, Probably Not Okay, Setsuna1986, Sierra Sai, Silentshimmer, SparklesX3, The Atlantean, Thumbelinaface, Zzombie35, X-Flower-X, ace44, underword, aldabeast101, amichalap, andreits1000lee, awesome chick, booklover41, bookmines, bookraderkindle15, brittashby, bucketh2o, cool-girl027, dablackfox101, , fanficauther1226, fluffysnowkittynamedjelsa, freezeon98, humaneity, irene122, janedoe2805, jesskaylynn4, kyamiru, logan345, madeline2206, , meggla, missbaquero, nickigaby, . , princesschalice, readerforeverandalways, sambhavisinha, shashabear, shiroyuki051700, wonderfic.**

**To my fantastic favorites: 23Sunflowers, AmeliaSkellig, Animagus7, Assassin4343, Axel1288, .Shadowhunter, . .Drugs, ChapterScript, ChevyImpalaCryWolf, CupcakeMonkey567, ElevenWhovian, Emma Winter Frost, ExtremeJelsaNerd, F.A.Y.B.A.N, Foxytail9, GodzillaMan1000, Happypenguin 177, Ichisake, Jelsa Fan Mac, Jondsolar, Justine16, Krisedge, LadyLiliaAnne, Looneybalooney, Lostblueheart16, MR.A7, MainlyJelsa, Masterr Warrior, MissAmazing03, Percabeth12-7, Probably Not Okay, Setsuna1986, Sierra Sai, Silentshimmer, SparklesX3, ThatOneTTGFan, Thumbelinaface, Underword, X-Flower-X Zzombie35, ace44, aldabeast101, amichalap, anderaita1000lee, brittashby, bucketh2o, camicarr9921, dablackfox101, , fluffysnowkittynamedjelsa, freezeon98, humaneity, janedoe2805, kyamiru, letitgo0, , meggla, missbaquero, princesschalice, readerforeverandalways,sambhavisinha, shiroyuki051700, wonderfic, emmarosaly.**

**And finally, a humongous appreciation and gratitude goes out to my amazingly incredible and awesomely wonderful reviewers: freezeon98, Beasbeth, Lostblueheart16, ShimmerShine, ExtremeJelsaNerd, John Titor, all the guests, Slientshimmer, fluffysnowkittynamedjelsa, ace44, Happypenguin177, Emma Winter Frost, emmarosaly , Axel1288, HyperactiveGuest, riversong, ChapterScript, Angela Bay, letitgo0, sambhavisinha, TheLoneReviewer, F.A.Y.B.A.N, Loller, clockworkprincess, ATav, Sierra Sai, thegirlwhowaited, jelsafan1, , FANGIRL, amethystonyx, FleurSuoh, Potterfowlriorden, MJK, L.M.H Shimmer Shine, Jewelaria Rosha, war against ships, mylittleoctonaut, LadyLionhart, Sailor Arctic, Katherine the Fabulous, Sadie, Minecraft-love-lolanice, mistysnowrainwindwater, MissAmazing03, missBaquero.**

**You guys, thank you so much for all your outstanding support throughout this unbelievably amazing journey, it truly means the entire world to me to have each and every one of your support!:,)**

**So how was that ending? What'd you think? I know it was kind of left open-ended but I just couldn't imagine it any other way... Sorry!:)**

**But do not worry, *****REMINDER* I still have a sequel to write! I will try my absolute best to start posting it next week, so keep your eyes open!:) And I sincerely hope all of you will join me on my next journey with my favorite couple of all time who are sadly highly unlikely to ever end up in a film together:,( *cough cough* WE NEED A JACK AND ELSA MOVIE NOW DISNEY AND DREAMWORKS!**

**In the meantime, I do have one new story I just started this week, so if you're a Rainbow Rowell fanatic like me, then please check out and enjoy my crossover between her two novels Fangirl and Eleanor &amp; Park called Crossing The Skies:)  
It would mean a lot if you guys tried it out!:)**

**If not, I highly recommend these magnificent Jelsa stories where my love for our frosty couple was first discovered:**

**-Snowflakes Among Stars by LadyLionhart (a story that is certain to be one of the few that really stand out from the rest!)**

**-To Break Walls by freezeon98 (THIS STORY IS EPIC!)**

**-Frostbitten by Arialene (This is where it all started, when I lost my sanity to Jelsa fandomXD)**

**-A Winter's Tale by SincerelyYoursM (Please check this one out guys! The author is absolutely astounding but has not gained a whole lot of attention so far, so please help them out!:)**

**-Through Ice And Shadows by wynteralchemyst (Only read first chapter but I am in love!)**

**-Forbidden Ice by emmarosaly (A MUST READ!)**

**-A Touch of Frost by Mockingfire**

**-Winter's Vein by AmeliaSkellig (So good you guys, I can guarantee you WILL NOT regret it:)**

**-Ship Of Dreams by Ceacee**

**-The Name's Frost, Jack Frost by Letitgo0 (Come on guys, Jack as a secret agent, how can you pass that up?)**

**-Finne Min Senter by snowharvester**

**Okay guys, that is unfortunately all for now. God, I already miss writing this story:,(  
So again, first chapter to my sequel will be up by next week, I am still brainstorming a name so if you want to find it, you can always search my username:)**

**Again everyone, thank you so much for this incredible journey, I had a ton of fun laughing, smiling and even shedding tears with you all!**

**Happy reading/writing!**

**-birdywings**

**P.S. My sister under the username Wallflower95 just posted a Divergent story based on Tris's mom's background this week and it would mean a lot to her if you could check it out:)**


	32. Edits In Progress

**Hey** **e****veryone,**

**I just want to let you all know that I've finally gotten around to editing this story, and though I have only edited thirteen chapters so far, (including the prologue), you will all soon be able to read an updated version of _A Winter's Promise_ in the next few months to come. These edits will include correcting grammatical errors, adding entirely new scenes, and even completely re-writing a few chapters so that the story flows to the best of its ability. I am really excited to go through the chapters and relive it all as I feel my writing has drastically improved since completing this story. So I hope to see you all around and I hope you like what I write!:)**

**And if you are wondering, as for my sequel _A Winter's Spell,_ I don't yet know if I will be continuing it due to a severe case of writer's block. But I will try my best to get around to finishing the story if possible. And if anyone has any idea they want to share with me to get my muse flowing again, I am open to suggestions and very much appreciate them:)**

**Anyway, please check out the new revisions and, if you're a returning reader, let me know how you like the edited version compared to the original. Stay tuned for more edits to come!**

**Thank you all again for your incredible support towards this story, for it would be nothing without it:)**

**-birdywings**

**P.S. If you haven't already, please read and review my Halloween Jelsa one shot called _Unveiled, _and my Frozen Christmas one shot about Anna and Elsa's relationship called _Silent Nights, _my Jelsa oneshots _Young Blood _and _Winter's Kiss, _my Jelsa poem _Between The Snowflakes, _my Christmas Jelsa oneshot _A White Christmas_ and please give my new Jelsa Christmas special _Twelve Years Of Christmas _a try!**


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